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^^e §arntic^ael S^ectuxes, I9I8 



LECTURES 






ON THE 



ANCIENT HISTORY OF INDIA 



ON THE PERIOD FROM 650 TO 325 B.C. 



Delivered in February, 1918 



BY 

D: R. BHANDARKAR, M.A., E.A.S.B., 
ii 

CABMICHAEL PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT INDIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE 
CALCUTTA UNIVERSITY 




SffP25I9f9 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA 

1919 



^^-"^ 



^ 



^ 



PRINTKD BY ATOtCHANDRA BHATTACHABTYA 
AT THB CALCUTTA UNIVHBBITT PBVIB, ilNATK HOUBS, GALCnTTA 



,/ 



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-..^j,.:i^ii.:.-i.ii'-*-^ 






SIR ASUTOSH MOOKERJEE SARASVATI 



To 
SIR ASUTOSH MOOKERJEE, SARASVATI, 

Sastra-Vachaspati, Sambuddhagama-Chakravarti 

who, l>y his lofty ideals, 

far-reaching foresight, and unfailing vigilance, 

has elevated the Calcutta University to the rank 

of a teaching and research University, 

the only one of its kind in India, 

and who, by his unstinted and discriminate 

liberality and encouragement, 

has led votaries of learning to look upon him 

as the VIKRAMADITYA of the present age. 

These Lectures 

are dedicated by the Author 
in token of profound admiration and reverence. 



PREFACE 



This book contains the lectures which I 
delivered as Carmichael Professor of the Calcutta 
University in Eebruary, 1918. When I came 
here to hold the chair, I was told that I was to 
deliver four lectures embodying some research 
work. If my lectures, I thought, were to con- 
tain nothing but new original work, they could 
be delivered only to a few advanced students of 
the Ancient Indian History and would hardly 
be understood by the people in general. If, on 
the other hand, they were to be such as would 
be intelligible to the latter, there was the danger 
of their being more popular than scholarly in 
character. Was it possible, I asked myself, to 
realise both the ends, i.e. to satisfy both the 
classes, — the scholars and the people ? After 
thinking about the matter, I came to the con- 
clusion that both the objects could be fulfilled 
if I selected a period and delivered my lectures 
on it. Perhaps the most neglected period was 
the one which immediately preceded the rise 
of the Mauryan power, although it was in some 
respects the most important one. This period 
was accordingly chosen and the lectures deli- 
vered. How far I have succeeded in interesting 
the specialists and the laymen in the subject- 
matter of these lectures I leave it to them to 
determine. 



Vlll 

The most important event of the period I 
have selected, viz : from 650 to 325 B.C., is the 
completion of the Aryan colonisation of Southern 
India. This has, therefore, become the theme 
of my first lecture. In my second, I have dealt 
with the political history of the period, the 
characteristic feature of which is the gradual 
evolution of Imperialism. Shortly before 
Buddha, the Aryanised India had been divided 
into sixteen tiny States, mostly kingships, which 
by the process of centralisation were developed 
into four Monarchies when Buddha was living, 
and these Monarchies, again, culminated into 
Imperialism about a century after his demise. 
My Third and Fourth Lectures pertain to the 
Administrative History, a subject Avhich has not 
yet attracted as much attention of the scholars 
as it deserves though the materials even now at 
our command are enough for the purpose. The 
Third Lecture is divided into two parts, the first 
of which deals with the Literature on Hindu 
Polity to which we are indebted for our know- 
ledge of this subject. This, I am afraid, is more 
of an esoteric than of an exoteric character, and 
may, therefore, prove somewhat abstruse to the 
general reader. The second part (p. 114 and ff.) 
aims at setting forth some of the Hindu con- 
ceptions of Monarchy, and will, I hope, be read 
with some interest. Therein I have attempted 
to set forth the evidence which, if it is impar- 
tially and dispassionately considered, seems to 
show that there was a time in the Ancient 



IX 

History of India when Monarchy was . not 
absolute and uncontrolled. We have been so 
much accustomed to read and hear of Monarchy 
in India as being always and invariably unfet- 
tered and despotic that the above conclusion is 
apt to appear incredible to many as it no doubt 
was to me for a long time. In the Pourth 
Lecture I have endeavoured to show that 
Monarchy was not the only form of political 
government known to India and the governments 
of a more or less popular character such as 
oligarchy, aristocracy and democracy were also 
flourishing side by side with it. In this lecture 
I have also endeavoured to give a glimpse into 
the rules and regulations of debate which charac- 
terised the popular assemblies of Ancient India 
and have pointed out that they bear a remarkably 
close correspondence to those followed by the 
modern civilised age. 

The Bengalis are a loving and lovable people, 
and many are the lecturers and teachers of the 
Calcutta University from whom I have received 
willing help and suggestions of various kinds. 
It is impossible to mention the names of them 
all here in this short preface. But I must 
mention the name of Mr. Narayan Chandra 
Banerji, M.A., for the invaluable assistance he 
rendered me in connection with my Lectures on 
the Administrative History before he formally 
became Lecturer of the University. The pre- 
paration of the Index is solely the work of my 
pupil Mr. N. G. Majumdar, B.A., who also 
helped me in revising the proofs. 



X 

It is scarcely necessary for me to add that 
the subject of the Ancient Indian History and 
Culture is a progressive one, and with every 
additional study and find of new materials some 
of the conclusions previously drawn are likely 
to be modified. And, as a matter of fact, as this 
book is reaching its completion, I myself am 
aware that I now hold somewhat different views 
on one or two matters dealt with in these 
Lectures. Similarly, though no effort has been 
spared to ensure accuracy and fullness, I do 
not expect this book to be by any means 
free from defects. But I request my readers 
not to play the role of a cattlelouse described 
in the well-known Sanskrit verse,* but rather 
to confine their attention to the good points 
only, if there be any, in these Lectures, and 
thus help to carry forward the torch of research 
work to illumine the dark periods of Ancient 
Indian History. 

An outsider like myself has only to see the 
affairs of the Calcutta University and be con- 
vinced that the progress of the Ancient History 
of India or of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit studies 
is due solely to the solicitude and encouragement 
of one single person, and it is to this person, 
therefore, that this book has been dedicated. In 
the dedicatory pages will be found his portrait, 
which, I may add, was inserted much against 
his wishes. 

D. R. B. 



* The verse says that a cattle-louse, though it is perched on a 
cow's udder, will have her blood, not her milk. 



ABBREVIATIONS 



Aiig. N. 
ASI. AR. 

ASIR.j) 

ASR. ) 

ASS. 

ASSI 



Aiiguttara-Nikaya. 

Archaeological Survey of India, 
Annual Report. 

Archaeological Survey of India, 
Reports. By Cunningham. 

Anandasrama Sanskrit Series, 
Poona. 

Archaeological Survey of Sou- 
thern India. 



BG. 


... Bombay Gazetteer. 


Bib. Ind. 


... Bibliotheca Indica. 


BSPS. 


... Bombay Sanskrit and Prakrit 




Series. 


BSS. 


... Bombay Sanskrit Series. 


CCIM. 


... Catalogue of Coins in the Indian 




Museum, Calcutta. By 




V. A. Smith. 


CII. 


... Corpus Inscriptionum Indi- 




carum. 


EC. 


... Epigraphia Carnatica. By L. 




Rice. 


EHI. 


... Early History of India. Third 




Edition. By V. A. Smith. 


EI. 


... Epigraphia Indica. 


GOS. 


... Gaek wad's Oriental Series. 


HASL. 


... History of Ancient Sanskrit 




Literature. By E. Max Miiller. 


lA. 


... Indian Antiquary. 



xu 



Jdt. 


... Jatakas. 


JBBEAS. 


. . . Journal of the Bombay Branch 




of the Eoyal Asiatic Society. 


JBOES. 


. . . Journal of the Bihar and Orissa 




Eesearch Society. 


JEAS. 


. . . Journal of the Eoyal Asiatic 




Society of Great Britain and 




Ireland. 


Maj. N. 


... Majjhima-Nikaya. 


PE.~WC. 


. . . Progress Eeport of the Archaeo- 




logical Survey, Western 




Circle. 


PTS. 


... Pali Text Society. 


Sam. ISf 


... Saiiiyutta-Nikaya. 


SBB. 


... Sacred Books of the Buddhists. 


SEE. 


. . . Sacred Books of the East. 


TSS. 


... Trivandrum Sanskrit Series. 


VOJ. 


... Vienna Oriental Journal. 


VP. 


... Vinaya Pitaka. 


ZEMG. 


... Zeitschrift der Eeuschen Mor- 




sjelandischen Gesellschaft. 



[ All references to the Mahabharata are from 
Pratapchandra Bay's edition. ] 



Lecture I. 

Aryan Colonisation 
or Southern India and Ceylon. 

I propose to open 1115^ first series of lectures 
as Carmichael Professor with the history of the 
pre-Maurya period, i.e. of the period extending 
from about 650 to 325 B.C. It is true that we 
do not know much about the political history of 
this period, but political history cannot be the 
whole history of any country. Again, it is the 
administrative, social, religious and ethnological 
history which is of much greater importance 
and far transcends political history in point of 
human interest and edification. And for the 
construction of this history for the period we 
hsive selected we have sufiicient materials. We 
have works of the Sutra period relating both to 
Law and Grammar. We have thus the 
Dharma-sastras of Baudhayana, Gautama, 
Apastamba and so forth, and the Ashtadhyayl 
of Panini and Katyayana's supplementary 
aphorisms or vctitikas on it. Purther, it was 
prior to the rise of the Maurj^as that Buddha 
lived and preached. And there is a general 
consensus of opinion among scholars that all 
the earlier works of the Buddhist Pali canon 
were put together in the period to which we 
are confining ourselves. Let us, therefore, 



2 LECTURE I. 

utilise these materials and try to see how India 
was socially, religiously and even politically 
from 650 to 325 B.C. 

'Vhe principal characteristic of this period is 
the completion of the colonisation of Southern 
India and Ceylon by the Aryans ; and this forms 
the subject of to-day's lecture. It is worthy 
of note that the southern half of India was 
called Dakshinapatha, which means 'Road to 
the South'. Already in a Vedic hymn/ although 
it is one of the latest, we meet with an expres- 
sion dakshind padd, meaning 'with southward 
foot', and used with reference to a man who is 
expelled to the south. This cannot of course 
denote the Dakshindpatha or Southern India 
as we understand it, but rather the country 
lying beyond the world then inhabited by the 
Aryans. It was in the Brahmana period, how- 
ever," that they for the first time seem to have 
crossed the Vindhya range which separates the 
south from the north half of India. In the 
Aitareya Brahmana" e.g., a prince named 
Bhima is designated Vaidarbha, 'prince of 
Yidarbha'c This shows that the Aryans had 
come doAvn below the Yindhyas and settled in 
Vidarbha or western Berars immediately to 
the south of this mountain range. The same 
Brahmana' represents the sage Yisvamitra to 

» Rig-Veda X. 61. 8. ^ Yu. 34. 9. 

' Vii. 17-18; aleo in Sanfchaya7ia-Srauf a- Suti a, xy. 26, 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 6 

have adopted Sunahsepa as his son and named 
him Devarata, much to the annoyance of fifty 
of his sons, who in consequence were cursed by 
their father to "live on the borders" of the 
province tlien occupied by the Aryans. The 
descendants of these sons of Visvamitra's, the 
Brahmana further tells us, formed the greater 
bulk of the Dasyus and w^ere variously known 
as Andhras, Punclras, Sabaras, Pulindas and 
Mutibas. Of these the Andhras, Pulindas and 
Sabaras at any rate are known from the 
Mahabharata, Ramavana and Puranas to have 
been tribes of Southern India ; and though the 
exact provinces inhabited by them in the time 
of the Aitareya Brahmana cannot be definitely 
settled, it cannot for a moment be doubted that 
they lived to tlie south of the Vindhyas and 
that the Aryans had already come in contact 
with these non-Aryan peoples. 

Let us now see what we learn from Panini, 
the founder of the most renowned School of 
Grammar and who lived about 600 B.C. In 
his sTit7xt^ or grammatical aphorisms he shows 
an extensive knowledge of the ancient geogra- 
phy of India. Most of the countries, places 
and rivers mentioned by him are. of course, to 
be found in the Punjab and Afghanistan. 
Belonging to India farther south he mentions 
Kachchha (IV.2.133), Avanti (IV.1.176), 
Kosala (IV.1.171) and Kalinga (IV.I.170). 



4 LECTURE I. 

But he makes no mention of any province to the 
south of the Narmada except that of Asmaka 
(IV.1.173). One of the oldest works of Pali 
Buddhist literature, the Sidta-nipata^^ speaks of a 
Brahman gmni called Bavarin as having left the 
Kosala country and settled near a village on the 
Godhavari in the Assaka (Asmaka) territory in 
the Dakkiiiapatha (Dakshinapatha). The story 
tells us that Bavarin sent his sixteen pupils to pay 
their homage to Buddha and confer with him. The 
route by which they proceeded northwards is 
also described.^ Eirst, they went to Patitthana 
of the Mulaka^ countiy, then to Mahissati, to 
Ujjeni, Gonaddha/ Yedisa and Vanasahvaya ; to 



1 Vs. 976-7. ' Ibid, Vs. 1011-3. 

^ In the text of the Sutta-nipata edited by V. Fausboll, the 
reading Alaka is adopted (Vs.977 & 1011), and the variant Mulaka 
noticed in the foot-notes. There can, however, be no doubt that Mulaka 
must be the correct reading. We know of no country of the name 
Alaka. Mulaka, on the other hand, is well-known. Thus in the 
celebrated Nasik cave inscription of VasishthTputra Pulumavi, the 
Mulaka country has been associated with Asaka (Asmaka), exactly as 
it has been done in the SuUa-ni^ata (EI., VIII.60). The same country 
seems to have been mentioned as Maulika by Varahamihira in his 
Brihaf-samhita (XIV. 8.) 

* Considering that GodavarT has heen called Godhavari in the 
Sutta-ni'pata, Gonaddha can very well te taken to stand for Gonadda- 
Gonarda, the place from which Patanjali, author of the Mahabhashya, 
hailed. Sir Ramkrishna Bhandarkar has shown on the authority of 
the Mahahhashya that Saketa was situated on the road from Gonarda 
to Pataliputra (I A. II. 7C). This is exactly in accordance with what 
the Sutta-nipata s,b;js, for Saketa, according to the route taken by 
Bavarin's pupils was on the way from Gonaddha to the Magadha 
country. The native place of Patai^jali was, therefore, in Centi-al 
India somewhere between Ujjain and Besnagar near Bhilsa. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 5 

Kosambi, Saketa and Savatthi (capital of the 
Kosala country) ; to Setavya, Kapilavatthu 
and Kusinara ; to Pava, Yesall (capital of 
Magadha), and finally to Pasanaka Chetiya 
where Buddha then was. The description of 
this route is very important in more than one 
ways. In the first place, it will be seen 
that Bavarin's settlement was much to the 
south of Patitthana, i.e. Paithan in Nizam's 
territory, because Patitthana was the principal 
town of the Mujaka province, to the south of 
which was the Asmaka country where Bavarin 
then was. Secondly, it is worthy of note that 
Bavarin's disciples went to North India straight 
through the Vindhyas. This disproves the 
theory of some scholars who hold that the 
Aryans were afraid of crossing the Vindhyas and 
went southwards to the Dekkan by an easterly 
detour round the mountain range, ^ x4Lfter leaving 
Patitthana or Paithan we find the party reaching 
Mahissati, i.e. Mahishmati, which has been cor- 
rectly identified with Mandhata on the Narmada 
on the borders of the Indore State. ^ Evidently, 
Bavarin's pupils must have passed to Mahishmati, 
i.e. to the other side of the Vindhyas through 
the Vidarbha country. 

Let us now turn to Panini and the School of 
Grammar that he founded. We have seen that 



^ See e.g. Early History of the Dtlchan (Second Edition), p. 9. 
^ JRAS., 1910, 445-6. 



6 LECTURE I. 

Asmaka is the only country in the Dekkan, which 
he mentions. The case, however, is different with 
Katyayana Ayho wrote aphorisms called vartikas 
to explain and supplement Panini and who has 
been assi^^ned to the middle of the 4fch century 
B.C. Now, to aPanini's sufra: janapada—sahdat 
Tcshatriyad=an (lY. 1. 168), Katyayana adds 
a vartika^ Fandor=^dymi, from which we ob- 
tain the form Panclya.^ If this vartika had 
not been made, we should have had the form not 
Pandya but Pandava. Again, we have a sTUra 
of Panini, Kamhojal^^luk (IV. 1. 175), which 
lays down that the word Kamboja denotes not 
only the Kamboja country or the Kamboja tribe 
but also the Kamboja king. But then there 
are other words which are exactly like Kamboja 
in this respect but which Panini has not men- 
tioned. Katyayana is, therefore, compelled to 
supplement the above sTiU'a Avith the vartika, 
Katnbojadibhyo = lug-vachanam Chodadym^tham. 
This means that like Kamboja tbe words Choda, 
Kadera and Kerala denote each not only the 



1 I am not yet in a position to determine finally whether this 
is a variika of Katyayana or a sapploment of Patanjali. Sir 
Ramkrishiia Bhandarkar in his Early History of the DeUhan (p. 7. 
8 n. 3) adopts the former view, whereas the text of Patanjali's 
Mahahhashya, as edited by Kielhorn in the Bombay Sanskrit 
Series, inclines one to the latter view. Even if this last proves 
ultimately to be the correct view, this in no way vitiates my main 
conclusion, because as the Pandyas are referred to both by Megasthenes 
in his Indika and by Asoka in his Rock Edicts,, their immigration to 
and settlement in South India were complete long before the rise of 
the Maury a power. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 7 

country and the tribe but also the king. It will 
thus be seen that Choda and Kerala, which are 
obviously countries situated in Southern India, 
were known to Katyayana, but not to Panini. Of 
course, no sane scholar who has studied the 
Ashtadhyclyl will be so bold as to assert that 
Panini was a careless or ignorant grammarian. 
But we have not one word, but at least three 
words, inz. Pandya, Choda and Kerala, the forma- 
tion of whose forms has not been explained by 
Panini, which any accurate and thorough-going 
grammarian would have done if they had been 
known to him. The only legitimate conclusion 
that can, therefore, be drawn is that the names 
of these southern countries were not known to 
Panini, or in other words, were not known to the 
Aryans in the seventh century B. C, but were 
known to them shortly before the middle of the 
fourth century B. C. when Katyayana lived. 
As regards Ceylon or Tamraparni as it was called 
in ancient days, it was certainly known to the 
Aryans long before the rise of the Maurya power. 
It has been mentioned not only by Asoka as 
Taiiibapani in his Bock Edict XIII but also as 
Taprobane by Megasthenes,^ who, as most of 
you are aware, was the ambassador sent by 
Seleukos Nicator of Syria to the court of Chandra- 
gupta, founder of the Maurya dynasty and 
grandfather of As'oka. Contemporaneously with 

1 lA. VI. 129. 



8 LECTURE i. 

Megasthenes lived Kautilya, who in his Artha- 
mstra ^ speaks of pearls being found among 
other places in the Tamrapani river, in Pandya- 
kavataka, and near the Mahendra mountain — 
all situated on the extremity of the Southern 
Peninsula. 

Now, the name of one of these southern king- 
doms was Choda, which was called Chora in 
Tamil and Chola in Telugu. The people also 
were called by the same name. I cannot resist 
the temptation of saying that it is from this 
Cho.a people that the Sanskrit word cliora 
meaning a thief has been derived. An exactly 
analogous instance we have in the word Dasyu or 
Dasa, which originally denoted the Dahae people of 
the Caspian Steppes' but which even in the 
Yedic period acquired a derogatory sense and 
soon after signified "a robber" _ If Dasyu thus 
originally was the name of a non- Aryan tribe 
and used in the sense of a robber, it is perfectly 
intelligible that the name of another non- Aryan 
people, viz. the Choras, was similarly employed 
to express a similar meaning. And this seems 
to have been the case, because the Vedic terms 



^ p. lb. For the river Tamraparni, see further in the sequel. 
It is also referred to in Asoka's Rock Edict II. Kautilya's Pandya- 
Tcavataka seems to be the same as Pandya-vataka or Pdndya-vatabhava 
of the Brihat-sanihita (80. 2 and 6). Mahendra here seems to be the 
most southerly spur of the Travancore Hills (JRAS,, 1894., 262). 

^ Hillebrandt, Vedische M^jthologie, I. 95 ; E. Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 
28. 214 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 9 

for a thief are taskara., tayu, steiia and i^aripan- 
thin, but never cliora, this word being for the 
first time found in the Taittiriya Aranyaka ^ 
which is a late work. This conclusion is strength- 
ened by the fact that in Latin and Greek also, 
there is no word, signifying " a thief," which 
correspends to chora in sound. 

The case, however, was different in regard to 
the name of the other people, viz. Pandya. 
Katyayana, we have seen, derives it from Pandu. 
This shows that the Pandyas were an Aryan tribe, 
and not an alien tribe like the Cholas or Choras. 
Now, a Greek writer called Pliny tells us a 
tradition about these Pandyas, on the authority 
of Megasthenes, that they were descended from 
Pandoea, the only daughter of the Indian Her- 
cules, i.e., of Krishna. She went avvay from the 
country of the Saarasenas, whose principal 
towns were Methora or Mathura and Cleisobora 
or Krishnapiira, and was assigned by her 
father just "that portion of India which lies 
southward and extends to the sea." ^ It is thus 
clear that the Pandyas were connected with the 
north and were an Aryan race. The account 
given by Megasthenes, however, like many tra- 
ditions of this nature, is to be regarded as a 
combination of both truth and fiction. In the 
first place no authority from any epic or Purana 
is forthcoming to show that Krishna had a 



» X. 65. ^ lA. VI 249-50 and 344. 



10 LECTURE i. 

daughter and of the name of Pandya. Secondly, 
though Mathura is connected with the infancy 
of Krishna, he lived as a ruler, not at Mathura 
but at Dvaraka from where alone he could send 
his daughter. These are, therefore,' the ele- 
ments of fiction that got mixed up with the 
immigration of the Pandyas. What appears to be 
the truth is that there was a tribe called Pandu 
round about Mathura, and that when a section 
of them Avent southwards and were settled there, 
they were called Pandyas. This is clear, I think, 
from Katyayana's vartiha. Fandoo'-dymi, which 
means that the suffix ya was to be attached not 
to Pandu the name of the father of the Pandavas 
but to Pandu, which was the name of a Ksha- 
triya tribe as well as of a country. Evidently 
Pandya denotes the descendants of the Pandu 
tribe, and must have been so called when they 
migrated southwards and established themselves 
there. ^ Nay, we have got evidence to show 
that there was a tribe called Pandu. Ptolemy, 
who wrote geography of India about A.D. 150, 
speaks not only of the kingdom of Pandion or 
Pandya but also of the country of the Pandoouoi 
in the Punjab. ^ These Pandoouoi can be no 
other than the people Pandu. Again, Yaraha- 

^ We also meet with similai* taddhita forms in later history. 
Thus we have instances of early tribes being called Chalukya, 
Kadamba and so forth, whose descendants later on came to be called 
Chalukya, Kadamba and so on. 

■" Ik., XIII. 331 and 349. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 11 

mihira, the celebrated astronomer, who flouri- 
shed about the middle of the 6th century A.D., 
makes mention of a tribe called Pandus and 
places them in Madhyadesa.^ There can, there- 
fore, be no doubt about the existence of a people 
called Pandus. And as according to Varahami- 
hira they were somewhere in the Madhyades'a, it 
is quite possible that in the time of Megasthenes 
they were settled round about Mathura? Megas- 
thenes' statement that the Pandyas of the 
south were connected with the Jumna and 
Mathura seems to be founded on fact, because 
the Greek writers, Pliny and Ptolemy, tell us 
that the capital of the Pandyas in the south was 
Modoura, ^ i.e., Madura, the principal town of 
the district of the same name in the Madras 
Presidency. The fact that the Pandyas of the 
south called their capital Madhura clearly shows 
that they came from the north from some 
country whose capital was Mathura and thus 
gives remarkable confirmation to what Megas- 
thenes has told us. This is quite in accordance 
with the practice of the colonists naming the 
younger towns or provinces after the older. 

We thus see that an Aryan tribe called 
Pandu went southwards, and occupied the 
southernmost part of the peninsula, where they 
were known as Pandya and their capital Madhura 



» Brihat-samhita, XIV. 3. 
s lA., XIII, 368, 



12 LECTURE I. 

or Mathura. Eut the story of the migrations 
of this enterprising Aryan tribe does not end 
here. We have to note that there is a third 
Matura in Ceylon, and also a fourth Madura 
in the Eastern Archipelago. ^ The natural 
conclusion is that the Pandyas did not rest 
satisfied with occupying the extremest southern 
part of the peninsula, but went farther south- 
ward and colonised Ceylon also. For, as 
just stated, the Pandyas no doubt appear to 
have come from Mathura, the capital of the 
Saurasena country as told by Megasthenes, 
because this alone can explain why they gave 
the naUiC Mathura to the capital of their new 
kingdom situated at the south end of India. 
And the fact that we have another Mathura in 
Ceylon shows that the Pandyas alone could go 
there and have a third capital of this name. 
Besides, as the Pandyas occupied the southern 
extremity of India, it was they who could natu- 
rally be expected to go and settle themselves in 
Ceylon. But they seem to have gone there, 
not from the Madura but from the Tinnevelly 
District. I have told you that the ancient 
name of Ceylon was Tamraparni, but we have 
to remember that Tamraparni was the name of 
a river also. -^ This doubtless is the present river 

^ Caldwell, Orammar of the Dravidian Languages, Intro., p. 16. 

2 Mahabhrirata III. 88. 15. That the Pancjyas held the Madura 
District is quite certain, because it was the territory immediately 
round about Madhura, their capital. That they held also the Tinnevell;;^ 



AHYAN COLONISATION. 13 

Tamraparni in the Tinnevelly District. Scholars 
have no doubt tacitly admitted that there was a 
connection somehow between this river and 
Ceylon, but this connection can be rendered 
intelligible only on the supposition that the 
Tinnevelly District was called Tamraparni after 
the river, just as Sindhu or Sind was after the 
river Sindhu or Indus. In that case it is intelli 
gible that when the Paiidyas went to Ceylon, 
they named it Tamraparni after the country 
they left. Again, coming as they did from the 
Tinnevelly District they would naturally land 
in the north-western part of the Island. And 
it is quite in keeping with this supposition that 
we find the ancient civilised and populous dis- 
trict of Ceylon, the so-called Kalah located, not 
in the south, east or north-east, but north-west 
part of the Island. ^ 

Let us now see how the Aryan colonisation 
of Southern India must have been accomplished. 
We know that when the Aryans migrated in 
ancient times from Afghanistan and Punjab to 
the dii^^erent parts of Northern India, they did 

District is clear from what Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus tell 
us about the Pandya kingdom (I A., XIII. 331). Northwards their rule 
seems to have extended as far as the highlands in the neighbourhood 
of the Coimbatore gap. Its western boundary was formed by the 
southern range of the Ghats. That the Aryans had occupied the 
Tinnevelly District at this time is evident from the fact that we have 
here not only the sacred river Tamraparni but also the sacred place 
Agastya-tirtha — both mentioned in the Mahabharata. 
1 Jour. Ceylon Br. R,A. Soc, VII. 57 & ff, 



14 LECTURE I. 

SO under the leadership of the Kshatriya tribes, 
and hence their new settlements were called 
after the names of those tribes. A curious 
legend in this connection is worth quoting from 
the Satapatha-Brahmana, from which it would 
appear that when the Aryans pushed forward 
to the east of the' Sarasvati, they were led by 
Mathava the Videgha, and his priest. ^ They 
went at first as far east as the Sadanira which 
formed the boundary between Kosala and 
Videha and which therefore corresponds to the 
Little Ganclak of the present day. ^ For some 
time they did not venture to cross this river. 
They did however cross it, and, at the time when 
the Satapatha-Brahmana Avas composed, were 
settled to the east of it in a province called 
Yideha no doubt after the name of the tribe to 
which the king Mathava belonged. Nay, we 
have got Panini's authority to that effect ; thus, 
according to him, Fanchalanam nivaso jana- 
paclali Pdnchalah, i.e. the word Fanchalah 
denotes the country or kingdom which the 
Kshatriya tribe Panchala occupied. What hap- 
pened in North India must have happened in 
South India also. I have already referred to 
the tribe Pandu who were settled in the 
southernmost part of India and after whom it 
was called Pandya. This was certainly a 



1 SEE.. XII. Intro, xli seq. : 104 seq. 
"- JRAS,, 1907, p. 644, 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 15 

Kshatriya tribe. Again, we have a passage in 
Kautilya's Arthasastra, viz. Dandakyo nama 
Bhojah lumiat Bralimana-kanyam^ahhimany- 
amanas=^isa-hand1ni~ras1itro vinanasa (a Bhoja 
known as Danclakya or king of Dandaka, mak- 
ing a lascivous attempt on a Brahman girl, 
perished along with his relations and kingdom.)^ 
Bhoja was, of course, the name of a Kshatriya 
tribe, as we know from the Mahabharata and 
Harivams'a. ^ And a prince of this tribe is here 
said to have been a ruler of Dandaka, which is 
another name for Maharashtra. ^ As all the 
incidents Avhich Kautilya mentions along with 
that of Danclakya Bhoja took place long before 
his time and as he himself was, we know, the 
prime-minister of Chandragupta, founder of the 
Maurya dynasty, and consequently lived at 
the close of the fourth century B.C., it ap- 
pears that the Bhojas must have taken posses- 
sion of Maharashtra, at least in the fifth 
century B.C., if not earlier. I have already 
told you that the Buddhist work Sidtanipata 
speaks of Patitthana or Paithan. in Mzam's 
Dominions. But there was an older 
Patitthana or Pratishthana on the confluence 
of the Ganges and the Jumna, which was the 



1 KautiVxyam Arthasasiram (Bibliotheca Sauskrita — No- 37), p. 11. 
5 MahahhErata, I. 85.34, II. 14. 6, & VI. 9. 40 ; Harivamsa, 
1895, 8816, 12838. 

' R. G. Bhandarkar, Early History of the DeMan, p. 4. 



l6 LECTURE i. 

capital of Aila Purtiravas. ^ The practice of 
naming the younger town after the older one 
is universal, and is well-known even in the 
colonies of European nations. I have already 
quoted you an instance from India, viz. of 
Mathura. And Pratishthana is hut another in- 
stance. It thus seems that on the hank of the 
Godavari we had a colony from the country of 
of which the older Pratishthana was the capital, 
and it is probable that we had here a colony 
of the Aila tribe. ^ Even as late as the third 
century A.D., we find North Indian Aryan 
tribes or families going southwards and settling 
themselves somewhere in Southern India. A 
Buddhist stupa has been discovered at Jagayya- 
peta in the Kistna Pistrict, Madras. We have 
got here at least three inscrijDtions of this 
period which refer themselves to the reign of 
the king Madhariputra Srl-Yirapurushadatta 
of the Ikshvaku family.^ This indicates that 
the Kistna and adjoining Districts were heM 
in the third century A.D. by the Ikshvakus,* 



^ Wilson, Vishnu-Purana, III. 237; Vikramorvasiyam (BSPS. 
Ed.), p. 41 ; believed to be present Jhiisi opposite Allahabad fort. 

" In the Mahabhrirata are mentioned both Ailavamsa (I. 94. 
65) and Aila-variisyas (II. 14. 4). Ailas are mentioned also in the 
Puranas. 

' Liiders, List of Brahmi Inscriptions etc, Nos. 1202-4. 

* It is not at all unlikely that Madhariputra SrT-Virapurushadatta 
■Was a prince of Dakshina-Kosala which in the third century A.D. may 
have extended as far as the east coast. We know that Uttara-Kosala, 
with its capital of Saketa or Ayodhya, was ruled over by the Ikshvakus, 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 17 

who certainly must have come from the north. 
We know that Rama, the hero of the 
Ramayana, belonged to the Ikshvaku race. So 
did Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The 
Ikshvakus are also mentioned in the Puranas 
as a historical royal dynasty ruling in North 
India. The Ikshvakus of the Kistna District 
must, therefore, have come from the north. 

It is true that the Aryan civilisation was 
thus to a certain extent spread over Southern 
India through conquest. But this cannot be 
the whole cause. Causes of a pacific and more 
important nature must also have operated. We 
are so much accustomed to hear about the 
enterprising and prosy litising spirit of the 
Buddhist and Jaina monks that we are apt to 
think that Brahmanism had never shown any 
missionary zeal. Is this, however, a fact ? Did 
not the Brahmans or at any rate any of the 
hymn- composing families put forth any mis- 
sionary effort and help in the dissemination of 
the Aryan culture ? I cannot help thinking 
that the ancient Rishis were not mere passive 
inert thinkers, but were active thouarh not 
aggressive propagators of their faith ? Tradi- 



afad it seems that when the Ikshvakus spread themselves southwards, 
their new province also was called Kosala, dahshina being also applied 
to it to distinguish it from their original territory which therefore 
became Uttara-Kosala. (Dakshina— ) Kosala was certainly well-known 
in the fourth century A. D., as it is mentioned in the Allahabad pillar 
inscription of Samudragupta and included in Dakshinapatha, 



18 LECTURE I. 

tion, narrated in the Mahabharata and 
Bamayana, says that it was the Brahman sage 
Agastya who first crossed the Vindhya range 
and led the way to the Aryan immigration. ^ 
When Bama began his southward march and 
was at Paiichavati, Agastya was ah'eady to the 
south of the Vindhyas and was staying in a 
hermitage about two yojcmas from it. This is 
not all. We find him evermore penetrating 
farther and farther into the hitherto unknown 
south, and civilising the Dravidians. Nay, this 
is admitted by the Tamil people themselves. 
They make Agastya the founder of their lan- 
guage and literature and call him by way of 
eminence the Tamirmmii or Tamilian sage. 
They still point to a mountain in the Tinnevelly 
District, which is commonly called by the 
English Agastier, — i.e. Agastya's hill — ■' Agastya 
being supposed to have finally retired thither 
from the world after civilising the Dravidians." ^ 
I am not unaware that these are legends. It 
is. however, a mistake to suppose that legends 
teach us nothing historical. It may very well 
be doubted whether Agastya as he figures in 
these legends is a historical personality. But 
a man is certainly lacking the historical sense 
if he cannot read in these legends the historical 
truth that Bishis took a most prominent but 

1 Mahahlmrata,!!!. \0^; Ramayana 111. 11. 85. 

* Caldwell, Grammar of the Pravidian Languages, Intro., 101, 119. 



AHYAN COLONISATION. 19 

unobtrusive part in the Aryan colonisation and 
the diffusion of Aryan culture. The old Ilishis 
of India, I think, were as enthusiastic and en- 
terprising in this respect as the Buddhist and 
Jaina missionaries, and were often migrating 
with their host of pupils to distant countries. 
I shall take only one instance. I hope you 
remember the Brahman gu7nt Bavarin, whom 
I mentioned a few minutes ago. His story 
appears in the Siitta-Nipata. He is described 
therein as perfect in the three Vedas. He has 
sixteen disciples — all Brahmans, and each one 
of them again had his host of pupils. They all 
bore matted hair and sacred skins, and are 
styled Uishis. With these pupils of his and 
their pupils' pupils Bavarin was settled on the 
bank of the Godavarl in the Asmaka territory, 
where he performed a sacrifice. He was thus 
settled on the confines of the Dakshinapatha, 
as it Avas then known, if not beyond. And yet 
we are told that originally he was at Sravasti, 
capital of the Kosala country. He and his 
pupils had thus traversed at least 600 miles before 
they came and were settled on the Godavarl. 
It will thus be seen that the E-ishis were in the 
habit of moving in large numbers and to long 
distances, and making their settlements where 
they performed sacrifices. This is exactly in 
keeping with what we gather from the 
Hamayana. To the south of the Yindhya, we 



20 LECTtlUE t. 

learn, there were many Brahman anchorites who 
lived in hermitages at different places and per- 
formed their sacrifices before Rama penetrated 
Dandakaranya and commenced his career of con- 
quest. There was an aboriginal tribe called the 
Ilakshasas who disturbed the sacrifices and 
devoured the hermits and thus placed themselves 
in hostile opposition to the Brahmanical institu- 
tions. On the other hand, under the designation 
of Vanaras, we have got another class of abori- 
gines, who allied themselves to the Brahmans 
and embraced their form of religious worship. 
Even among the Bakshasas we know we had an 
exception in Vibhishana, brother of Bavana, 
who is said to be na ta Rdkshasa-clieshtitah,^ not 
behaving himself like a Bakshasa. This was the 
state of thinojs in Southern India when Bama 
came there. This clearly shows that the Bishis 
were always to the forefront in the work of 
colonising Southern India and introducing 
Aryan civilisation. Amongst them Agastya was 
the only Bishi, who fought with the Baksliasas 
and killed them. The other Bishis, like true 
missionaries, never resorted to the practice of 
retaliation, though they believed rightly or 
wrongly that they had the power of ridding them- 
selves of their enemy. One of them distinctly 
says to B/ama : Kammh tapali-prahlmvena sakta 
hantum nisdchardn chirdrjitam na ch-echchhamas- 

t , ^ Bamayana, III. l7. 22. - . , 



Aryan colonisation. 21 

tapah khandayitum vayam : "It is true that by the 
power of our austerities we could at will slay 
these goblins ; but we are unwilling to nullify 
(the merit of) our austerities." ^ A.nd it was 
simply because through genuine missionary 
spirit the Rishis refused to practice retaliation 
that Rama, like a true Kshatriya, intervened and 
waged war with the Rakshasas. This high noble 
spirit of the ancient Rishis, manifested in 
their mixing with the aborigines and civilising 
them, is not seen from the Ramayana only. It 
may also be seen from the story of the fifty of 
Visvamitra's sons, mentioned in the Aitareya 
Brahmana and referred to at the beginning of 
this lecture. They strongly disapproved of his 
adoption of Sunahsepa, and were for that reason 
cursed by Visvamitra to live on the borders of 
the Aryan settlements. And their progeny, we 
are told, are the Andhras, Punclras, Sabaras and 
so forth. If we read the legend aright, it clearly 
indicates that even the scions of such an illus- 
trious hymn-composing family as that of 
Visvamitra migrated southward boldly, and what 
is more, married and mixed freely with the 
aborigines, with the object of diffusing Aryan 
culture amongst them. 

But by what routes did the Aryans penetrate 
South India ? This question we have now to con- 
sider. The main route, I think, is the reverse 

1 Ihid., III. 10. 13-14. 



22 LECTURE I. 

of the one by which Bavarin's pupils went to 
Magadha from Asmaka. This was described a 
short time ago. The Aryan route thus seems 
to have lain through the Avanti country, the 
southernmost town of which was Mahissati or 
Mandhata on the Narmada, from where the 
Aryans crossed the Vindhyas and penetrated 
Southern India. They began by colonising 
Vidarbha from which they proceeded southwards 
first to the Mulaka territory with its principal 
town Patitthana or Paithan and from there to the 
Asmaka country. By what route farther south- 
ward they immigrated is not clear, but the 
find- spots of As'oka's inscriptions perhaps afford 
a clue. One copy of his Minor Eock Edicts has 
been found at Maski in the Lingsugur Taluq of 
the Baichur District, Nizam's Dominions, ^ and 
three more farther southward, in the Ghitaldrug 
District of the Mysore State. ^ A few Jaina 
cave inscriptions have come to light also in the 
Madura District ^ and appear to belong to the 
second century B.C. and possibly earlier. As 
As'oka's edicts and these cave inscriptions are in 
Pali, these certainly were the districts colonised 
by the Aryans. The Aryans thus seem to 
to have sjone south from the Asmaka territory 
through the modern E/aichur and Ghitaldrug 

1 Hyderahad Archaeological Series, No. I, p. 1. 

2 EC, Vol. XI. (Intro.), p. 2. 

3 Annual Report on Epigraphy for the year ending Slat March 
1912, p. 57. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. Z6 

Districts, from where they must have gone to 
the Madura District which was originally in 
the Pandya kingdom. This seems to agree with 
the tradition of their immigration preserved 
amons^ the Tamil Brahmans. These Brahmans 
have a section called Brihachcharana which 
means the G-reat Immigration, and must refer 
to a large southward movement ^ They are 
subdivided into Mazhnadu and Molagu. The 
Mazhnadu sub-section is further divided into 
Kandra-manikkam, Mangudi and Sathia-manga- 
1am etc., all villages along the Western Ghats — - 
showing that in their southward movement 
they clung to the highlands and peopled the 
skirts of the present province of Mysore and 
the Coimbatore and Madura Districts — a con- 
clusion which agrees with that just drawn from 
the find-spots of the Asoka and Cave Inscriptions 
in Southern India. 

Another route by which the Aryans seem to 
have gone to South India was by the sea. They 
appear to have sailed from the Indus to 
Kachchha, and from there by sea-coast to Sura- 
shtra or Kathiawar, from Kathiawar to Bharuka- 
chchha or modern Broach, and from Bharukach- 
chha to Supparaka or Sopara in the Thana District 
of the Bombay Presidency. Baudhayana, the 
author of a Dhm'masastra quotes a verse from 
the Bhallavin School of Law, which tells us 



' lA., 1912,231-2, 



24 LECTTJRE I. 

that the inhabitants of Sindhu, Sauvira and 
Surashtra like those of the Dekkan were of 
mixed origin. This shows that the Aryans 
had begun colonising those parts. Towards 
the end of the period we have selected they 
seem to have advanced as far south as Sopara. 
But as already stated they must have gone by 
the sea-route, because it is quite clear that no 
mention is traceable of any inland countries or 
towns between the sea-coast and the Dekkan. ^ 

Now, wherever in India and Ceylon the 
Aryans penetrated, they introduced not only 
their civilisation, i.e. their religion, culture and 
and social organisation, but also imposed their 
language on the aborigines. It is scarcely 
necessary for me to expatiate on the former 
point, for it is an indisputable fact that the 
Hindu civilisation that we see everywhere in 
India or Ceylon is essentially Aryan. You 
know about it as much and as well as I do. 
This point, therefore, calls for no remarks. In 
regard to the Aryan language, however, I cannot 
do better than quote the following opinion of 
Sir George Grierson, an eminent linguist of 
the present day. "When an Aryan tongue," 



1 It will be stated further on in the text that no less than three 
Buddhist stupas have been found in the Kistna District with quite a 
number of Pali inscriptions showing that the Aryans had colonised that 
part. The question arises from where did the Aryans go there ; They 
must have gone either from Kalinga or Asmaka, most probably from 
the latter. See note on p. 40 below. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 25 

says he, "comes into contact with an uncivilized 
aboriginal one, it is invariably the latter which 
goes to the wall. The Aryan does not attempt 
to speak it, and the necessities of intercourse 
compelled the aborigine to use a broken 'pigeon' 
form of the language of a superior civilisation. 
As generations pass this mixed jargon more 
and more approximates to its model, and in 
process of time the old aboriginal language is 
forgotten and dies a natural death." ^ I com- 
pletely endorse this view of Sir George Grierson 
except in one respect. This exception, you 
will at once see, is the Dravidian languages 
which are at present spoken in Southern India. 
It is, indeed, strange how the Aryan, failed to 
supplant the Dravidian, speech in this part of 
India, though it most successfully did in Nor- 
thern India, where I have no doubt the Dravidi- 
an tongue prevailed before the advent of the 
Aryans. This will be seen from the fact that 
"Erahul, the language of the mountaineers in 
the Khanship of Kelat in Beluchistan, contains 
not only some Dravidian words, but a consider- 
able infusion of distinctively Dravidian forms 
and idioms" ^ . The discovery of this Dravidian 
element in a language spoken beyond the Indus 
tends to show that the Dravidians, like the 
Aryans, the Scythians, and so forth, must have 

^ s __^ ; 

1 Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. I. pp. 351.2, 

* Caldwell, Gra^nmar of the Dravidian Languages, Intro, pp. 43-4' 



26 LECTURE I. 

entered India by tlie north-western route. It 
is also a well-known fact, accepted by all scho- 
lars, that there are many Sanskrit words, which 
are really Dravidian, and Kittel, in his Kanna- 
da-English Dictionary, gives a long list of 
them. But in compiling this list he seems to 
have drawn exclusively upon classical Sanskrit, 
which was never a hliasha or spoken language. 
At least one Dravidian word, however, is known 
from the Yedic literature, which is admitted to 
be composed in the language actually spoken 
by the people. The word I mean is matachl 
which occurs in the Chhandogya-Upanishad 
(1. 10.1) in the passage Matachl-hateslm Kurushu 
atihya saha jay ay a Ushastir-=ha Chakrayana 
ibhya-grame pradranaka uvasa. Here evidently 
the devastation of the crops in the Kuru country 
by matachl is spoken of. All the commentators 
except one have wrongly taken matachl to mean 
'hailstones', but one commentator who is an 
exception rightly gives rakta-varnah hshudra- 
pakshi-viseshah as an alternative equivalent ^ 
This shows that these "red-coloured winged 
creatures" can be no other than locusts, and 
that it is they which laid waste the fields of the 
Kuru country as they do to the present day in 
every part of India. It is interesting to note 
that this explanation of the commentator 
is confirmed by the fact that matachl is 

1 JRAS., 1911, p. 510. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 27 

a Sanskritisecl form of the well-known Canarese 
word midiche which is explained by Kittel's 
Dictionary as "a grasshopper, a locust" 
and which is used in this sense to this day in 
the Dharwar District of the Bombay Presidency ^ 
Scholars are unanimous on the point that the 
Chhandogya-Upanishad is one of the earliest 
of the Upanishads. Nobody doubts that this 
Upanishad was put together in the North of 
India, especially in the Punjab, and that the 
Sanskrit language in which it is composed 
represents the current speech of the day. And 
yet we find in it a term which is a genuinely 
Dravidian word. I have no doubt that more 
such will be forthcoming from the Vedic 
literature if scholars of the Dravidian languages 
undertake this task. And this will confirm the 
conclusion that the Dravidian tongue was 
prevalent in North India before the Aryans 
came and occupied it. The same conclusion is 
forced upon us by an examination of the 
vernaculars of North India. Take Bengali, for 
instance ; the words Khoka and Khuki which 
mean *boy' and 'girl' in Bengali are nothing 
but the Oraon Koka and Koki. The Bengali 
telo, 'head', is the Telugu fa-la and Tamil 
Td-lai. Nola, 'tongue' is Tamil nalu. The 
plural suffix gul is used in Tamil to denote 
'many'. Gull and giila are used for the same 

1 lA., 1913, p. 235, 



28 LECTURE I. 

purpose in Bengali. Instances can be multi- 
plieu \ but those given are enough, to show 
that even the vernacular Bengali, which bristles 
with Sanskrit and derivative words, is indebted 
to Dravidian languages for a pretty large portion 
of its vocabulary and structural peculiarities. 
What is strange is that even in Hindi speech 
Dravidian words have been traced. Even the 
commonest Hindi woidsjhagra, ata and so forth 
have been traced to Dravidian vocables ^. No. 
reasonable doubt can therefore be entertained 
as to the Dravidian speech once being spoken in 
North India. 

We thus see that the Dravidian tongue was 
once spoken in North India but was superseded 
by the Aryan, when the Aryans penetrated and 
established themselves there. It, therefore, 
becomes extremely curious how in Southern 
India the Aryan speech was not able to supplant 
the Dravidian. But here a question arises : 
Is it a fact that even in that part of the country 
no Aryan tongue was ever known or spoken by 
the aborigine, after the Aryans came and were 
settled here ? I take my stand on epigraphic 
records as they alone can afford irrefragible 
evidence on the subject. Let us first take the 



1 For a detailed consideration of this subject, see Baiigalabhashay 
Dravidi upadana by Mr. B. C. Mazumdar printed in Sahitya-parishat- 
patriha, Vol. XX. Pt. I. 

» lA. 1916, p. 16. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 29 

province whose vernacular at present is Telugu. 
The earliest inscriptions found here are those of 
Asoka. Evidently I mean the version of his 
Eourteen E^ock Edicts engraved at Jaugada in 
the Ganjam District, the extreme north-east 
part of the Madras Presidency. But I am 
afraid I cannot lay much stress upon it, because 
though Telugu is no doubt spoken in this 
district, Uriya is not unknown here, at any rate 
in the northern portion of it. And it is a well- 
known fact that in a province where the 
ranges of any two languages or dialects meet, 
the boundary which divides one from the other 
is never permanently fixed, but is always 
changing. I shall not, therefore, refer here to 
the Eourteen Rock Edicts discovered in the 
Ganjam District, but shall come down a little 
southwards and select that district where none 
but a Dravidian language is spoken — I mean 
the Kistna District. Here no less than three 
Buddhist stupas have been discovered, along 
with a number of inscriptions. The earliest of 
these is that at Bhattiprolu, the next is the cele- 
brated one at Amravati, and the third is that at 
Jagayyapeta. The inscriptions connected with 
these monuments are short donative records, 
specifying each the name and social status of 
the donor along with the nature of his gift. An 
examination of these records shows that people 
of various classes and statuses participated in 



50 LECTURE I. 

this series of religious benefactions. "We will 
here leave aside the big folk, such as those who 
belonged to the warrior or merchant class, and 
who, it might be contended, were the Aryan 
conquerors. We will also leave aside the monks 
and nuns, because their original social status is 
never mentioned in Buddhist inscriptional 
records. We have thus left for our considera- 
tion the people who are called heranika or 
goldsmiths, and, above all, the cliammaharas or 
leather-workers. These at any rate cannot be 
reasonably supposed to form part of the Aryan 
people who were settled in the Kistna District, 
and yet we find that their names are clearly 
Aryan, showing that they imbibed the Aryan 
civilisation even to the extent of adopting their 
names. Thus, we have a goldsmith of the name 
of Sidhatha or Siddhartha, two leather-workers 
(father and son) of the name of Yidhika or 
Yriddhika and Naga. ^ All these unmistakably 
are Aryan names, but this string of names 
does not stop here. We have yet to make 
mention of another individual who is named 
Kanha or Krishna. This too is an Aryan name, 
but the individual, it is worthy of note, calls 
himself Damila, ^ which is exactly the same as 
Tamil or Sanskrit Dravida. And, in fact, this is 
the earliest word so far found signifying the 
Dravidian race. We thus see that as the result 



1 ASSI., I. 91 & 102-3. - Ihid,, 104, 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 81 

of the Aryan settlement in the Kistna District, 
the local people were so steeped in Aryan civili- 
sation that they went even to the length of 
taking Aryan proper names to themselves. But 
could they understand or speak the Aryan 
tongue ? Do the inscriptions found in the 
Kistna District tbrow any light on this point ? 
Yes, they do, because the language of these 
records is Pali,^ and Pali we know is an Aryan 
speech. This clearly proves that an Aryan 
tongue was spoken in the Kistna District from 
at least 150 B.C. to 200 A.D.— the period to 
which the inscriptions belong. I am aware it 
is possible to argue that this Aryan language 
was spoken only by the Aryans who were settled 
there, and not necessarily by the people in 
general, and, above all, the lower classes. This 
argument is not convincing, because it is incon- 
ceivable that earlier Buddhism, whose one aim 
was to be in direct touch with the masses, and 
which must have obtained almost all its converts 
of this district from all sorts and conditions of the 
indigenous people including the lowest classes, 
could adopt an Aryan tongue unless it was at 
least as well known to and actually spoken by 
the people in general as their home tongue. 
This inference is confirmed by the fact that 

^ I use this term in the sense in which it has been taken by 
Mr, Francke in his Pali and SansJcrit. Perhaps this should have been 
styled monumental Pali to distinguish it from literary Pali, i.e. the Pali 
of the Buddhist scriptures. 



32 LECTtJUE i. 

three copies of what are called Asoka's Minor 
Rock Edicts have been found in the Chitaldrug 
District of the Mysore State, ^ i.e. in the very 
heart of what is now the Canarese-speaking 
province. One of these edicts enumerates the 
diiferent virtues that constitute what Asoka 
meant by dhamma, and the other exhorts all 
people especially those of low position to put 
forth strenuous endeavour after the highest life. 
All the inscriptions of Asoka, especially these 
Edicts, had a very practical object in view. They 
were intended to be understood and pondered 
over by people of all classes, and as the language 
of these epig-raphic records is Pali, the conclusion 
is irresistible that though perhaps it was not the 
home tongue, it could be spoken, at least well 
understood, by all people including the lower 
classes. But this is not all. We have get incon- 
testable evidence that up to the 4th century 
A.D., Pali w^9, also the official language of the 
kings even in those provinces where Dravidian 
languages are now suprem e. At least one stone 
inscription and five copper-plate charters have 
been found in these provinces, ranging from 
the second to the fourth or fifth century A.D. 
The stone inscription was found at Majavalli in 
Shimoga District, Mysore State. ^ It registers 
some grant to the god Ma]apali by Vinhukada 

» EC, XI. Intro. 1 &ff. 

^ Liiders, List of Brahmi Inscriptions, Nos, 1195-6. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 33 

Chutukalanariida ^ Satakarni of the Kadamba 
dynasty ^ who calls himself king of Vaijayanti, 
and records the renewal of the same grant by his 
son. Vaijayanti, we know, is Banavasi in the 
North Kanara District, Bombay Presidency. 
At Banavasi, too, we have found an inscription 
of the queen of this king. Both Banavasi and 
Malavalli are situated in the Canarese-speaking 
country, and yet we find that the official language 
here is Pali. The sS-me conclusion is proved with 
reference to the Tamil-speaking country by the 
five copper-plate grants referred to above. Of 
these five three belong to the Pallava dynasty 
reigning at Kaiichipura, one to a king called 
Jayavarman, and one to Vijayadevavarman. ^ 

^ I had occasion to examine coias of two princes of this dynasty- 
found in the Noi'th Canara District, Bombay. Their names on them 
are clearly Chntnkalanaifida and Mulanatnda (PR. — WC, 1911-2, p. 5, 
para 18,) Prof. Rapson is inclined to take Chutu and Mnda (Munda) as 
dynastic names (Catalogue of the coins of the Avdhra Dynasty etc., Intro. 
Ixxxiv-lxxxvi). In my opinion, the whole Ghutuka(kii)lanamda and 
Mulanariida are proper names or individual epithets, for to me it is 
inconceivable how they could mention their dynastic names only on 
the coins and not individual names or epithets at all. 

' Prof. Rapson has conclusively shown that Vinhukada Chutuka- 
lanamda and Sivaskandavarman of the Malavalli inscriptions were 
related to each other as father and son (ibid, liv-lv). But then it is 
worthy of note that the latter has been called king of the Kadambas 
in one of these records. It thus appears that both father and son 
belonged to the Kadamba dynasty — a conclusion which thoroughly 
agrees with the fact that their title Vaijaya7it'i-'pura-raja, Manavya- 
sagotta and Haritlputta are exactly those of the Kadambas known to 
us from their copper-plate charters (Bomlay Gazetteer, Vol. I., pt. IT , 
p. 287). 

= Liiders' List, Nos. 1200, 1206, 1327, 1328 and 1194. 



84 . LECTURE 1. 

The very fact that every one of these is a title- 
deed and has been drawn up in Pali shows 
that this Aryan language must have been known 
to officials of even the lowest rank and also to 
literate and even semi-literate people. One of 
the three Pallava charters, e.g., issues instruc- 
tions, for the maintenance of the grant therein 
registered, not only to rajakumara or royal 
princes, seiiapati or generals, and so forth, but 
also to the free-holders of' various villages 
{gamagmna-hhojaka), guards {arahhadhikata) 
and even cowherds {go-vaMava) who were 
employed in the king's service. The princes ^ 
and generals may perhaps be presumed to be 
of the Aryan stock and consequently speak- 
ing an Aryan tongue, but the free-holders of the 
various villages, guards and cowherds, at any 
rate, must be supposed to be of non- Aryan race. 
And when instructions are issued to them by a 
charter couched in Pali, the conclusion is inevi- 
table that this Aryan tongue, at least up to the 
fourth century A.D., was spoken and understood 
by all classes of people in a country of which 
the capital was Kanchipura or Conjeveram and 
which was and is now a centre of the Tamil 
language and literature. 

Just now I have many a time remarked that 
Pali might not have been the home tongue of the 

' Personally I think most of the princes in Southern India were 
f Dravidian blood, as is clearly evidenced by their names such as 
Pulumavi, Vilivayaknraj Kajalaya, Chntiikala and so forth. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 35 

people but was well understood by them. Per- 
haps some of you would like to know what T 
exactly mean by this. I shall explain myself 
by giving an instance. We know that there are 
many Canarese-speaking districts which were 
conquered and held by the Marathas. Some of 
them still belong to the Maratha Chiefs. If you 
go to any one of these districts, you will find 
that although the indigenous people speak 
Canarese at home and among themselves, Marathi 
is understood by many of them and even by some 
of the lower classes. This is the result of the 
Maratha domination extending over only two 
centuries, and has happened notwithstanding the 
fact that the Canarese people have their own art 
and literature. As the Pjili inscriptions referred 
to above show, the Aryans had established them- 
selves in Southern India for at least seven cen- 
turies. It is, therefore, no wonder that the 
Aryan tongue could be spoken, at any rate well 
understood, by the original Dravidians even to 
the lowest classes, as is clearly evidenced, I think, 
at least by the inscriptions of Asoka and those 
connected with Buddhist stTqjas. We must not, 
however, lose sight of the fact that the Aryan 
lanffuaoce for some reason or another had not 
become the home tongue of these Dravidians. 
Evidence in support of this conclusion, curiously 
enough, is forthcoming from an extraneous and 
unforeseen quarter. A papyrus of the second 



36 LECTURE I. 

century A.D. was discovered in 1903 at Oxy- 
rhynclms in Egypt, containing a Greek farce by 
an unknown author. ^ The farce is concerned 
with a Greek lady named Cliarition, who has 
been stranded on the coast of a country border- 
ing the Indian Ocean. The king of this 
country addresses his retinue as " Chiefs of the 
Indians." In some places the same king and his 
countrymen use their own language especially 
when Charition has wine served to them to 
make them drunk. Many stray words have been 
traced, but so far only two sentences have 
been read, and these leave no doubt whatever 
as to their language having been Canarese. 
One of the sentences referred to his here 
Kohcha madhu patrakke hahi, which means 
" having poured a little wine into the cup 
separately." The other sentence is panam her 
etti Katti madhuvam her ettuvenu, which means 
"having taken up the cup separately and having 
covered (it), I shall take wine separately." 
Erom the fact that the Indian language em- 
ployed in the papyrus is Canarese, it follows 
that the scene of Charition's adventures is one 
of the numerous small ports an the western 
coast of India between Karwar and Mangalore 
and that Canarese was at least imperfectly 
understood in that part of Egypt where the 
farce was composed and acted, for if the Greek 

' JRAS., 1904, p. 399 fE. 



ARTAK COLONISATION. 37 

audience in Egypt did not understand even a 
bit of Canarese, the scene of the drinkino; bout 
would be denuded of all its humour and would 
be entirely out of place. There were commercial 
relations of an intimate nature between Egypt 
and the west coast of India in the early 
centuries of the Christian era, and it is not 
strange if some people of Egypt understood 
Canarese. To come to our point, the papyrus 
clearly shows that, in the second century A.D., 
Canarese was spoken in Southern India even 
by princes, who most probably were Dravidian 
by extraction. The Canarese, however, which 
they spoke, was not pure Canarese, but was 
strongly tinctured with Aryan words. I have 
quoted two Canarese sentences from the Greek 
farce, and you will have seen that they contain 
the words patina (cup), pancmi (drink) aiad 
madhu (wine), which are genuine Aryan 
vocables as they are to be found in the Vedas. 
The \QYj fact that even in respect of ordinary 
affairs relating to drinking we find them using, 
not words of their home language as we would 
naturally expect them to do, but words from 
Aryan vocabulary, indicates what hold the Aryan 
speech had on their tongue. 

Nevertheless it must be confessed that even 
seven centuries of Aryan domination in South 
India was not enough for the eradication of the 
Dravidian languages. It would be exceedingly 



38 LECTURE I. 

interesting to investigate the circumstances 
which precluded the Aryan tongue here from 
supplanting the aboriginal one. Such an inquiry, 
I am afraid, is irrelevant here. And I, therefore, 
leave it to the Dravidian scholars to tackle 
this most interesting but also most bewildering 
problem/ 

Though the causes that led to the preserva- 
tion and survival of the Dravidian languages 
are not knovrn at present, this much is certain, 
as I have shown above, that up till 400 A.D. 
at any rate, an Aryan tongue was spoken and 
known to the people in general just in those 
provinces where the Dravidian languages are 
now the only vernaculars. If such was the 
case, we can easily understand why in Ceylon ''^ 
to the present day we have an Indo- Aryan 
vernacular. Eor we have seen that the tide of 
the Aryan colonisation did not stop till it reached 
Ceylon. Naturally, therefore, not only the 
Aryan civilisation but also the Aryan speech 
was implanted from South India into this 
country, where, however, as in North India, 
it succeeded in completely superseding the 
tongue originally spoken there. This satisfactori- 
ly answers, I think, the question about the 
origin of Pali in which the Buddhist scriptures 



1 Let me say here that the exact question to be answered is why 
the Dravidian, was supplanted by the Aryan, language in North 
India, but not in South India, although Aryan civilisation had 
apparently permeated South India as much as North India. 



ARYAN COLONISATION. 39 

of Ceylon have been written. The Island was 
converted to Buddhism about the middle of the 
third century B. C. by the preaching of Mahinda, 
a son of the great Buddhist Emperor As'oka. 
Naturally, therefore, the scriptures which 
Mahinda brought with him from his father's 
capital must have been in Magadhi, the dialect 
of the Mas^adha countrv. As a matter of 
fact, however, the language of these scriptures, 
as we have them now, is anvthino: but MaEradhl, 
though, of course, a few Magadhisms are here 
and there traceable. This discrepancy has been 
variously explained by scholars. Prof. Kern 
holds that Pali was never spoken and was an 
artificial language altogether — a view which no 
scholar endorses at present. Prof. Oldenberg 
boldly rejects the Sinhalese tradition that 
Mahinda brought the sacred texts to Ceylon. 
He compares the Pali language to that of the 
cave inscriptions in Maharashtra and of the 
epigraph of king Kharavela in Hathigumpha in 
Orissa, i.e. old Kaliiiga, says that they are essen- 
tially the same dialect and comes to the conclu- 
sion that the Ti-pitaka was brought to the Island 
from the peninsula of South India, either from 
Maharashtra or Kaliiiga, with the natural spread 
of Buddhism southwards ^ I am afraid, I 
cannot agree with Prof. Oldenberg in his first 
conclusion. On the contrary, I agree with 

^ Vinaya-Piiaham, Vol. I, Intro, pp. liv-lv. 



40 LECTURE I. 

Prof. Rhys Davids that the Sinhalese tradition 
that Buddhism was introduced into Ceylon by 
Mahinda is well-founded and must be accepted 
as true. On the other hand, Prof. Oldenberg 
has, I think, correctly pointed out that Pali of 
Buddhist scriptures is widely divergent from 
Magadhi but is essentially the same as the 
dialect of the old inscriptions found in Maha- 
rashtra or Kalinga. The truth of the matter is 
that the Aryans, who colonised Maharashtra and 
Kalinga \ spoke practically the same dialect, as 
is evidenced by inscriptions, and that when they 
went still farther southwards and occupied 
Ceylon, they naturally introduced their own 
dialect there, as is also evidenced by the incrip- 
tions discovered in the Island. I have told you 
before that the Aryan colonisation of Ceylon 
was complete long prior to the advent of the 
Mauryas, and we must, therefore, suppose that 
this dialect was already being spoken when 
Mahinda came and introduced Buddhism. Now, 
we have a passage in the ChiUlavagga - of 



^ Personally I thiak, the Aryans went to Kalinga not by the 
eastern, but by the southern route. It is worthy of note that while 
the Pali Buddhist canon kno^vs Anga and Magadha and Assaka 
(Asmaka) and Kalinga, it does not know Vanga, Pundra and Suhnia — 
exactly the countries intervening between Anga and Kalinga, through 
which they would certainly have passed and where they certainly 
would have been settled if they had gone to Kalinga by the eastern 
route. There is, therefore, notliing strange in the dialect of Kalinga 
being the same as that of Maharashtra or the Pali. 

4 V. 33. 1. 



Aryan colonisation. 41 

the Vinaya-intaka, in which Buddha distinctly 
ordains that his word was to be conveyed by 
dijferent Bhikshus in their different dialects. 
The Magadhi of the sacred texts brought by 
Mahinda must thus have been replaced by Pali, 
the dialect of Ceylon, and we can perfectly 
understand how in this gradual replacement a 
few Mascadhisms of the oriarinal mav here and 
there have escaped this weeding-out, especially 
as Magadhi and Pali were not two divergent 
languages but only two dialects of one and the 
same language. 



Lecture II. 

Political History. 

In this lecture I intend treating of the Politi- 
cal history of the period we have selected, viz. 
approximately from 650 to 325 B.C. No good 
idea of this history is possible unless we first 
consider the question : What were the biggest 
territorial divisions known at this time ? The most 
central of these divisions is, as you are aware, the 
Madhya-desa or the Middle Country. Accor- 
ding to Manu ^, it denotes the land between the 
Himalaya in the north, the Yindhya in the south, 
Prayaga or Allahabad in the east, and Vinasana 
or the place where the Sarasvati disappears, in 
the west. It is true that the laws of Manu 
were put into their present form after 200 E.G., 
»but I have no doubt that by far the greater 
portion of it belongs to a much earlier period. 
Mann's description of the Middle Country e.g. 
appears to be nlder than that we find in the 
Buddhist Pali canon, because the easternmost 
point of the Madhyades'a was Prayaga in 
Manu's time, whereas that mentioned in the 
Buddhist works is far to the east of it. It will 
thus be seen that the Middle Countr}^ has not 
been described by Manu only but also in Buddhist 

1 II. 21, 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 43 

scriptures. This description occurs in the 
Vinaya-Pitaka^ in connection with the Avanti- 
Dakshinapatha country where the Buddhist 
monk Maha-Kachchayana Avas carrying on his 
missionary work. Avanti-Dakshinapatha was, 
we are told, outside the Middle Country, and it 
appears that Buddhism had not made much pro- 
gress there when Maha-Kachchayana began his 
work. When a new member was received into 
the Buddhist order, the necessary initiation cere- 
mony had to be performed before a chapter of 
at least ten monks. This was the rule ordained 
by Buddha, but this was well-nigh impossible in 
the Avanti-Dakshinapatha country as there were 
very few Bhikshus there. Maha-Kachchayana, 
therefore, sent a pupil of his to Buddha to get the 
rule relaxed. Buddha, of course, relaxed the 
rule and laid down that in all provinces outside 
the Middle Country a chapter of four Bhikshus 
was quite sufficient. It was, Jiowever, necessary 
to specify the boundaries of the Middle Country, 
and this was done by Buddha with his characteris- 
tic precision. To the east, we are told, was the 
town called Kajaiigala, beyond that is Mahasala. 
To the south-east is the river Salalavati, to the 
south is the town Setakannika, to the west is 
the Brahman village called Thuna, and to the 
north is the mountain called Usiraddhaja. 
Unfortunately none of these boundary places here 

1 Text. 1. 197 --'i; MS, SEE. II. 38, 



44) LECTURE J I. 

specified liave been identified except one. This 
exception is the easterly point, viz. Kajangala, 
which, according to Prof. Rhys Davids, must 
have been situated nearly 70 miles east of modern 
Bhagalpur.^ In the time of Buddha, therefore, the 
eastern limit of the Middle Country had extended 
nearly -iOO miles eastward of Frayaga which 
was its eastern most point in Mann's time. 
Now there cannot be any doubt that Madhya- 
des'a was looked upon as a territorial division. 
We find constant references to it in the 
Buddhist Jatakas, Thus in one place we 
read of two merchants going from Utkala 
or Orisa to the Majjhima Desa or Middle 
Country.'- This clearly shows that Orisa was 
not included in the Middle Country. But 
we read of Videha being situated in it.*' Again, 
we hear of hermits fearing to descend from the 
Himalayas to go into Majjhima Des'a, because 
the people there are too learned.^ It will thus 
be quite clear that Majjhima Des'a or Madhya 
Des'a was a name not created by literary authors, 
but was actually in vogue among the people 
and denoted some particular territorial division. 
It was with reference to this Middle Country 
that the terms Dakshinapatha and Uttarapatha 



^ JRAS., 1904, 87-8. 
' .Tat. I. 80. 
' Ibid. III. 364. 
* Ibid. III. 115-6. 



POLITICAL HIST0R5f. 4)5 

seem to have come into use. Dakshinapatha, 
I think, originally meant the country to the south 
not of the Vindhya so much as of the Madhya- 
des'a. This is clear from the fact that we tind 
mention made of Avanti-Dakshinapatha. I 
have just told you that it was in this country 
that the Buddhist missionary Maha-Kachchayana 
preached. It is worthy of note that Avauti was 
a very extensive country and that in Buddhist 
works we sometimes hear of Ujjeni^ and some- 
times of Mahissati^ as being its capital. Ujjeni 
is, of course, the well-known Ujjain, and 
Mahissati is the same as the Sanskrit Mahish- 
mati and has been correctly identified with 
Mandhata'^ on the Narinada in the Central 
Provinces. It, therefore, seems that Ujjain 
was the capital of the northern division of Avanti, 
which was known simply as the Avanti country 
and Mahissati of the southern division, which 
was, therefore, called Avanti-Dakshinapatha. 
Now, Mandhata, with which Mahissati has been 
identified, is not to the south of the Yindhyas, 
but rather in the range itself, and as it was the 
capital of a country, this country must necessarily 
have included a portion of Central India imme- 
diately to the north of this mountain range, its 
southern portion having coincided with Yidarbha. 

> Ibid. IV. 390. 

» SBB. III. 270. 

^ JRAS., 1910, 445-6. 



J=6 LECTURE II. 

This country of Avanti-Dakshinapatha was 
thus not exactly to the south of the Vinclhya as 
its upper half was to the north of this range. 
And yet it has heen called Dakshinapatha.^ And 
it seems to have heen called Dakshinapatha, 
because it was to the south not so much of the 
Vindhya as of the Middle Country. The same 
appears to he the case with the term Uttarapatha. 
One Jataka speaks of certain horse-dealers as 
having come from Uttarapatha to Baranasi or 
Benares.^ Uttarapatha cannot here signify 
Northern India, because Benares itself is in 
Northern India. Evidently it denotes a country 
at least outside and to the north of the Kas'i 
kingdom whose capital wa§ Benares. As the 
horses of the dealers just referred to are called 
smdJiava, it clearly indicates that they came 
from the banks of the Sindhu or the Indus. We 
have seen that according to Manu the SarasvatI 
formed tlie western boundary of the Madhyadesa. 
And the J ndus is as much to the north as to the 
Avest of the Sarasvati and therefore of Madhya- 
desa. It was thus with reference to the Middle 
Country that the name Uttarapatha also was 
devised. Up to the tenth century A.D., we find 
the term Uttarapatha used in this sense.^ Thus 



1 See also the name ATanti-dakkhinapatha occnrring in Jat. 
III. 468. 16. 

2 II. 287. 15. 

3 In the Divyavadana (Cowell and Neil, p. 407) Takshnsila is 
placed in the Cttarapatha. But It is iiot olear that this Uttarapatha 
excluded Madhyadesa. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 47 

when Prablifikaravardhana, king of Sthanvisvara, 
sent his son E,ajyavarcliiana to invade the 
Huna territory in the Himalayas, Bana (cir. 
625 A.D.) author of the Harshacharita, re- 
presents him to have gone to the Uttara- 
patha. ^ As the Huna territory has thus 
been placed in the Uttarapatha, it is clear that 
Prabhakaravardhana's kingdom was excluded 
from it. And as SthanvJs'vara, capital of 
Prabhakaravardhana, is Thanesar and is on this 
side of the Sarasvati, his kingdom vt^as under- 
stood to be included in the Madhyades'a, with 
reference to which alone the Huna territory 
seems to have been described as being in the 
Uttarapatha. Similarly, the poet Ejajasekhara 
(880-920 A.D.), in his Kavya-mlmamsa^^ places 
Uttarapatha on the other side of Piithudaka, 
which, we know, is Pehoa in the Karnal District, 
Panjab, i.e. on the western border of the Middle 
Country. It is, therefore, clear that the 
terms Dakshinapatha and Uttarapatha came into 
vogue only in regard to the Madhyades'a. It 
must, however, be borne in mind that although 
Uttarapatha in Northern India denoted the 
country north of the Madhyades'a, in Southern 
India even in Bana's time the term denoted 
Northern India. Thus Harshavardhana, Bana's 
patron, has been described in South India 



1 Harshacharita (BSFS. LXVI), p. 210. 
= (GOS.I), p. 94. 1. 8. 



48 LECTURE II. 

inscriptions ^s ^^umad-Uttarapath-adhij^ati, i.e. 
sovereign of Uttarapatha, which must here 
signify North India.^ 

We thus see that the whole of the region 
occupied hy the Aryans was at this early period 
divided into three parts, viz. Madhyades'a, 
Uttarapatha and Dakshinapatha. Let us now 
see what the political divisions were. In no 
less than four places the Aiiguttara-Nikaya 
mentions what appears to be a stereotyped list 
of the Solasa Mahci-janapada, i e. the Sixteen 
Great Countries. This list is certainly familiar 
to those of you who have read Rhys Davids' 
Buddhist India. It is as follows : — 



1. 


Anga. 


9. 


Kuru. 


2. 


Magadha. 


10. 


Fafichala. 


3. 


Kasi. 


11. 


Machchha, 


4. 


Kosala. 


12. 


Stirasena. 


5. 


VajJT. 


13. 


Assaka. 


6. 


Malla. 


14. 


Avanti. 


7. 


Cheti. 


15. 


Gandhara. 


S. 


Vaiiisa. 


16. 


Kamboja. 



Now, if we look to this list, we shall find 
that here we have got the names not of countries 
proper but of peoples. It is curious that 
the name of a people was employed to 
denote the country they occupied. The 
custom was certainly prevalent in ancient 
times, but has now fallen into desuetude. 

3 JBBRAS., XIV. 26 ; LA. VIIT, 46. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 49 

Secondly, two of these names are not of 
peoples but of tribes, viz. the Vajji and 
the Malla. Thirdlj^, we seem to have here a 
specification, by pairs, of the conterminous 
countries. Aiiga and Magadha thus are one 
pair, KasI and Kosala another, Kuru and 
Paiichala a third, and so on, and there can be no 
doubt that the countries of each pair are 
contiguous with each other. Other points too are 
worth noting about this list, but they can be best 
understood when we come to know the more or 
less correct geographical position of the countries. 
Let us take the first pair, viz. Aiiga and 
Magadha. That they were conterminous is 
clear e.g. from one Jataka story,' which tells 
us that the citizens of Anga and Magadha were 
travelling from one land to another and staying 
in a house on the marches of the two ratthas, 
i.e. kingdoms. This shows that they were not 
only contiguous but separate kingdoms in the 
7th century B.C., the social life of which 
period the Jatakas are believed to depict. 
In the time of Buddha, Anga was first 
independent, but came afterwards to be 
annexed to Magadha. The river Champa 
separated Anga from Magadha. ^ On this 
river was the capital of Aiiga which also 
was called Champa and has been identified 
by Cunningham with Bhagalpur. '' One Jataka 

' II. 211. I A fE. - Jat. IV. 454. 11. ' ASR.XV. 31. 



50 LECTUilE II. 

story calls it Kalachampa, and places it 60 
yojands from Mithila. The capital of Maga- 
dha was Rajagriha, modern E,ajgir. Strictly 
speaking, there were two capitals here —one, the 
more ancient, called Girivraja because it was a 
veritable ' cow-pen of hills' heing enclosed by 
the five hills of Rajglr, and the other, ^ Rajagriha 
proper, the later town built at the foot of the 
hills. Shortly after the death of Buddha the 
capital of Magadha was transferred from Raja- 
griha to Pataliputra, modern Patna. 

We shall take up the next pair, viz. Kasi and 
Kosala. Kasi-rattha was an independent king- 
dom before the rise of Buddhism. In the time 
of Buddha, however, it formed part of Kosala. 
The capital of Kasi-rattha was Baranasi, i.e. 
Benares, so called perhaps after the great river 
Baranasi. ^ Kasi, it is worthy of note, was the 
name of a country and not of a town. Kasipura, 
of course, denoted Benares, but in the sense of 
the capital (pura) of the Kasi country. Baranasi 
had other names also. Thus it was called 
Surundhana ^ in the Udaya Birth, Sudassana * in 
the Chullasutasoma Birth, Brahmavaddhana '' in 
the Sonanandana Birth, Pupphavati ^ in the 



^ Mahabharata, Sabhu2l. 1-3. 

- Index to the Jutaka {Jat. VII. 92) under Baranasi-mahanadl. 

= Jat. IV. 104. 15, ]8. 

* Ibid. IV. 119. 28 ; V. 177, 12, etc. 

= Ibid. IV. 119. 29; V. 312. 19, etc. 

" Ibid. IV. 119. 29 ; VI. 131, 11, etc. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 51 

Kliandaliala Birth and Ramma City ^ in the 
Yuvahjaya Birth. Its sixth name was Molinl. - 
Kosala is called anantara-samanta to, i.e. immedi- 
ately bordering on, Kasi in one Jataka. The 
capital of Kosala is Savatthi or SravastI, which, 
we now know beyond all doubt, is Maheth of the 
village group Saheth-Maheth on the borders of 
the Gronda and Bahraich Districts of the United 
Provinces. ^ Another important town of this 
country was Saketa, which was certainly the 
capital of Kosala in the period immediately pre- 
ceding Buddha, as is clear from the Jatakas. * 
Cunningham has shown that this Saketa can be 
no other than Ayodhya, modern Oudh. ^ 

The third pair we have to consider is Vajji 
and Malla. I have already told you that they 
are the names, not. of peoples, but of tribes. The 
Vajji were known also as Lichchhavis. Videha 
and some parts of Kosala appear to have been 
held by them. Their capital was Vesali or Vai- 
sall which has been identified with Basarh of the 
Muzaffarpur District of Bihar. ^ 

Then comes the pair — Chetl and Varhsa. 
In the Jatakas mention has been made of 
Chetarattha or Chetiya-rattha., and at one 
place we are told that its capital was 

1 Ibid. IV. 119. 26, etc. * See e.g. JFd. III. 270. 15. 

2 Ibid. IV. 15. 20, etc. = ASR. I. 320. 

3 JRAS., 1909, p. 1066 & ff. « ASI., AR., 1903-4, 82-3. 



52 LECTUEE II. 

Sotthivati-nagara.^ I have no doubt that Cheta or 
Chetiya is the same as the Sanskrit Chaidya or 
Chedi, which occurs even in the Kigveda " and 
corresponds roughly to the modern Bundelkhand. 
The Variisa are identical with the Vatsas, whose 
capital was Kausambl. This last has been iden- 
tified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with Kosam 
on the Jumna, about thirty miles south of west 
from Allahabad. '' 

Kuru and Panchala have been known to be 
contiguous countries since the Vedic period. The 
capital of the Kuru country was Indapatta or 
Indraprastha near Delhi, and that of Panchala 
Kampilya which has been identified with Kampil 
on the old Ganges between Budaon and Parrukha- 
bad in V. P. ^ Both these must be Dakshina- 
Kuru and Dakshina -Panchala. The capital of 
Uttara-Panchala was Ahichchhatra or Ahikshetra 
according to the Mahabharata. Mention of 
Uttara-Kuru we meet with both in the early 
Brahmanical and Buddhist literature, but its 
capital is not yet known. 

As regards Machchha and Surasena, the 
former doubtless corresponds to the Sanskrit 
Matsya. The Matsya people and country have 
been known to us from early times, being men- 
tioned as early as the ^atapatha " and Gopatha ^ 
Brahmanas and the Kaushitaki Upanishad. ' 

^ Jat. III. 454. 19-20. * ASR. XI. 12 ; JRAS., 1899, 313. 

2 VIII. 5. 37-9. = XIII. 5. 4.9. 

^ ASR, I. 304-5 ; also JRAS,, 1898, 503. « I. 2. 9. ' IV. 1. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 53 

Matsya orig^inally included parts of Alwar, 
Jaipur and Bharatpur, and was the kingdom 
of the king Virata of the Mahabharata, in 
whose court the five Pandava brothers resided 
incognito during the last year of their banish- 
ment. ^ His capital has been identified with 
Bairat in the Jaipur State. The Surasenas 
occupied the country whose capital was Madhura 
i.e. Mathura, on the Jumna. In Buddha's time 
the king of Madhura was styled Avanti-putta, 
showing that on his mother's side he was con- 
nected with the royal family of Ujjain. It is 
worthy of note that according to Manu, the 
Kurukshetra, the Matsyas, the Panchalas and 
the Surasenakas comprised Brahmarshi-desa or 
the land of the Brahman. Rishis. '' 

The Assakas and the Avantis have been asso- 
ciated together in the Sona-Nanda-Jataka. "^ 
The first obviously are the Asmakas of the 
Brihat-samhita. * In early Pali literature, Assaka 
with its capital Potana or Potali has, on the one 
hand, been distinguished from Mulaka with its 
capital Patitthana (Paithan), ^ and, on the other, 



^ PR., WC 1909-10, 44. 

"' II. 19. 

= Jat., V. 3lY. 24. 

* lA., XXII. 174. 

5 In the Sutta-Nipata (V. 977) the Assaka (ASmaka) country has 
been associated with MujAka with its capital Patitthana and men- 
tioned as situated immediatelj to the south of the latter but along 
the river Godavarj (Vs, 977 & 1010-1). See also p. 4 and n. 3 supra. 



54 LECTURE ir. 

from Kaliiigi with its capital Dantapura. ^ But 
as Assaka is here contrasted with Avanti, it 
seems to have included Mulaka and also perhaps 
Kalinga. ^ Avanti also here inclndes the two 
well-known divisions referred to ahove^the 
northern division called simply Avanti country 
with its capital Ujjain and the southern Avanti- 
Dakshinapatha with its capital Mahissati. 

The last pair is Gandhara and Kamboja. 
The former included West Panjab and East 
Afghanistan. Its capital was Takkasila or 
Takshasila, " whose ruins are spread near Sarai- 
Kala in the Rawalpindi District, Panjab. It 
is very difficult to locate Kamboja. According 
to one view they were a Northern Himalayan 
people, and according to another the Tibetans. 
Put in our period they were probably settled 
to the north-west of the Indus and are the same 

.. 1 JUt. III. 3. 3-4. 
- Assaka is similarly contrasted with Avanti in Jat. V, 317. 24. 
In "the Digha-Nikaya, Kalinga, Assaka, and Avanti are contradistin- 
"■uished (SBB. III. 270) where Assaka .must have comprised Mulaka. 

^ Jat., I. 191.11; 11. 47. 11, etc., etc. In the Mahabharata two 
capitals of Gandhara are mentioned, vie. Takshasila and Pushkaravail, 
the former situated to the east and the latter to the west of the Indus. 
In Asoka's time Takshasila does not appear to have been the capital 
of Gandhara, for from his Rock Edict XFII we see that Gandhara 
was not in his dominions proper but was feudatory to him.. On the 
other hand, from Sepai'ate Orissa Edict I we learn that Takshasila, 
was under him as one of his sons was stationed there. Evidently 
Takshasila was not the capital of Gandhara in Asoka's time. This 
a<^rees with the statement of Ptolemy that the Gandarai (Gandhara) 
country was to the west of the Indus with its city Proklais i.e. 
(Puslikaravat!) (lA. XIII. 348-49).- " 



POLITICAL HISTOKY. 56 

as Kambuji^a of the old Persian inscriptions. 
Their capital is not known. 

It will be seen that the different political 
divisions, mentioned in the above list, were in 
existence shortly before the time of Buddha. 
We know that during his lifetime Aiiga ceased 
to be an independent kingdom, and was annexed 
to Magadha, and that the territory of Kasi was 
incorporated into the Kosala dominions. If we, 
however, turn to the Jatakas, we find that both 
Anga and Kasi were independent countries. The 
Champeyya-Jataka ^ e g. speaks of Ariga and 
Magadha as two distinct kingdoms, whose rulers 
were constantly at war with each other. Kasi 
and Kosala are similarly represented in the 
Mahasilava- Jataka and Asatarupa-Jataka '" as 
being two independent countries and their kings 
fighting with each other. The political divisions 
enumerated in the Anguttara-Nikaya w^ere, 
therefore, existing prior, but only just prior, to 
the time when Buddha flourished, because we 
have the mention of the Vajji and Malla in this 
list. It is worthy of note that they are mentioned 
in the Jatakas bnt only in the introductions 
to them and never in the stories themselves. 

Evidently, therefore, these tribes came to be 
known after the period represented by the Jatakas 
but before that of the origin of Buddhism. It will 

1 JTLf. IV. 454 & ff. 

■' Ibid., I. 262 & ff and 409 & ff. 



56 LECTURE II. 

thus be observed that early in the sixth century 
B.C.J India, i.e. that portion of India which was 
colonised by the Aryans at that time, was split 
up into a number of tiny States, living indepen- 
dently and sometimes fighting with one 
another. There was no supreme ruler to whom 
they owed fealty. The Puranas tell the 
same tale. They distinctly state that along 
with the rulers of Magadha flourished other 
dynasties, such as Aikshvakavas or kings of 
Kosala, Paiichalas, Ivaseyas, Asmakas, Kurus, 
Maithilas and so forth. ^ This clearly shows that 
about 600 B.C., India occupied by the Aryans 
was divided into several small kingdoms and that 
there was no imperial dynasty to which the 
others were subordinate. The most important 
of these tiny dynasties is that of Brahmadatta 
reigning at Baranasi and ruling over Kasi- 
rattha. The family also seems to have been 
called Brahmadatta after this king. Thus in 
the Jatakas every prince who was heir-apparent 
to the throne of Baranasi has been styled Brah- 
madatta-kumara. In the Matsya-Purana ^ also, 
a dynasty consisting of one hundred Bralima- 
dattas has been referred to. In the Jatakas no 
less than six kings of Baranasi have been men- 
tioned besides Brahmadatta. They are Uggasena, 



' Pargiter, 23-4. 

- (ASS. Ed.), p. 556, V. 72; I am indebted for this referenc* 
to Mr. Harit Ki-isliiia Deb. 



POLITICAL HISTOHY. 57 

Dhanaiijaya, Mahasllava, Samyama, Vissasena 
and Udayabhadda. ^ In the Puranas Brahma- 
datta is represented to have been followed in 
succession by Yogasena, Vishvaksena, Udaksena 
and Bhallata. ' There can be no doubt that 
Vishvaksena and Udaksena of the Puranas are 
the same as Vissasena and Udayabhadda of 
the Jatakas. Bhallata of the Puranas, again, 
is most probably Bhallatiya of the Bhallatiya- 
Jataka. ^ 

When Buddha lived and preached, there 
were four kingdoms, viz. Magadha, Kosala, 
Vatsa and Avanti. The most prominent of 
these was Magadha, whose rulers, as we shall 
see subsequently, rose to the position of para- 
mount sovereigns. From Pali Buddhist canon 
which pertains to a period only slightly later 
than the demise of Buddha and which consequ- 
ently is trustworthy, we learn that Chanda-Prad- 
yota of Avanti, Udayana of A^atsa territory, 
Pasenadi and his son Vidtidabha of Kosala, and 
Bimbisara and his son Ajatas'atru of Magadha 
were contemporaries of Buddha. The kings were 
thus contemporaries of one another. This point 
is worth grasping as this synchronism is the only 
sheet-anchor in the troubled sea of chronology 

1 Jat.. IV- 458. 13; III. 97. 23 ; I. 262. 8 ; V. 354. 9 ; 11.345. 
19 ; IV. 104. 22 & 25. 

■" VEyu-P. (ASS. Ed.), p. 376, VS. 180-2; Vishnu-P., pt. IV. 
cap. 19. 

= Jtt^ IV. 437. 16. 



58 LECTURE II. 

in the period Ave have selected. The only 
chronicle that is relied on for this period is the 
Pnranas, hut it is a hopeless task to reduce the 
chaos of the Puranic accounts to any order. 
Some attempts ^ no douht have recently heen 
made to deduce a consistent political history 
from these materials, but without any success 
so far as I can see. 

I have just informed you that in the time of 
Buddha there were four important kingdoms, 
flourishing side by side. They were also connected 
by matrimonial alliances as might naturally be 
expected. Por our description we shall first take 
Udayana of Ivausambi, and Pradyota, ruler of 
Ujjain. A, long account of Udayana is contain- 
ed in the Katha-sarit-sagara, but the greater 
portion of it, I am afraid, is untrustworthy. 
According to the Puranas he pertained to the 
Paurava dynasty.^ The same authority tells us 
that his father's name was Satanika. Bhasa, 
the earliest Sanskrit dramatist that we know at 
present, has composed two dramas describing 
incidents from Udayana's life, viz. Svapna- 
Vasavadatta and JPratiJna- Yaugandharayana. 
From these it appears that he was the son of 
Satanika and grandson of Sahasranika and 



1 Mr. S- V. Venkateswara A3-yar'tj Ihe Ancient History of 
Magadha (lA., xlv. 8-16 & 28-31); Mr. K. P. JayaswaFs The 
iSciisinmha and Maurija Chronology etc. (.JBORS., 1915, 67 & ff.) 

^ Pargiter, pp. 7 & 66. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 59 

belonged to the Bharata family. ^ As he is called 
Vaideliiputra, his mother appears to have been 
dau2:hter of the kino- of Videha. Udavana's first 
Queen was Yasavadatta, daughter of the king of 
TJjjain, who is called Prad^^ota Mahasena by 
Bhasa but Chanda Pradyota in Buddhist works. 
According to the Buddhist tradition, Udayana 
had two more queens, viz. Samavati and Magan- 
diya. The latter was his crowned queen and 
was daughter of a Brahman. According to the 
Brahmanic accounts he had two queens only, 
viz. Vasayadatta and Padmavatl. His second 
queen, Padmavatl, was sister to Darsaka, king 
of Bajagriha, Magadha. Scholars of the saner 
type have assigned Bhasa to the third century 
A.D., and Bhasa apparently followed the tradi- 
tion which was current in his time. He does 
not, however, seem to be correct in accepting 
the tradition which makes Padmavatl, sister to 
Dars'aka, as will be showm shortly when we come 
to treat of the Magadha dynasties. TJdajT^ana had 
a lute called GhoshavatI," whose sound captivated 
the elephants and by means of which he captured 
them. He had a she-elephant named Bhadda- 
vatika, to which he owed his life, queen and 
kingdom."' 



^ Bhasa sjjeaks of this family as 'prakasa-rajarshi-namadheyo 
and Ved-ukshara-8amaiaya-pravish(o {Pratijnu-Y., p. 34). 

"^ This seems to have been an heir-loom of the Bharata family 
to which Udayana belonged and which was noted for proficiency in 
mnsic {PraiiJ7ia-Y., pp. 3-i-5). ° Jat. III. 38-i. 



60 LECTURE II. 

The two dramas of Bhasa referred to above 
supply us with many interesting items of 
information which, when they are brought to 
a focus, throw a flood of light upon the political 
condition of the period. The king, that seems 
to have been dreaded most when Buddha lived, 
was not Ajatasatru, Pasenadi or Udayana, but 
Pradyota who is known both as Mahasena or 
"possessed of a large army"^ and Chanda or 
"terrible." ^ We know from the Majjhima- 
Nikctya that even such a powerful king as 
Ajatasatru was thrown on his defensive and was 
engaged on fortifying his capital Bajagriha 
when Pradyota invaded his territory, instead 
of meeting him openly in battle. Before, 
however, he attacked Magadha, he thought of 
subjugating the neighbouring province of Vatsa. 
But he was afraid of the undaunted bravery of 
Udayana and the political sagacity of his prime- 
minister Yaugandharayana. He, therefore, 
resorted to a ruse. He knew of the inordinate 
fondness of Udayana for capturing wild 
elephants with the captivating sounds of his 
Vina. An artificial elephant was set up in the 
jungles of the Narmada just where the 
boundaries of the Avanti and Vatsa kingdoms 

^ Vasavadatta herself says that her father was called Mahasena on 
account of his large army (tasya hala-parimTina-nirvrittam ncimadheyam 
Mahasena iti — Svnpna-V., 20.). 

= In the same drama Udayana speaks of Pradyota as prithivyarii 
raja-vamsya7iam=ii,day'asta-maya-'pra'bhith (p. 67). 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 6l 

met, and in the body of the elephant were 
concealed a number of select Avarriors. Udayana 
fell a victim to this trap, put up a heroic fight 
to free himself, but was taken prisoner and 
carried away to Ujjain, where however, he was 
accorded chivalrous treatment by Mahasena. 
When Yaugandharayana learnt that his master 
had fallen into the hands of a neighbouring 
king, he hastened to his release. He turned a 
Euddhist monk along with another minister and 
stole into Ujjain. He found that the release of 
Udayana had become a complicated affair hy 
the latter having fallen in love with 
Vasavadatta, Mahasena's daughter. He, 
however, devised a way out of this difficulty. 
One of his men was made a Maliaut of 
Vasavadatta, and on an appointed day the two 
lovers managed to elope, leaving Yaugan- 
dharayana and his fighting band to cover their 
flight. At first, Mahasena was furious, but he 
soon relented, and in the absence of the lovers 
themselves the proper marriage ceremonies were 
performed over their portraits. 

Kautilya in his Arthasastra ^ says that when 
it is impossible to ward off danger from all sides, 
a king should run away, leaving all that belongs 
to him ; for, if he lives, his return to powder is 
certain as was the case with Suyatra and 
Udayana. We know from the Svapna- 

1 p. 358. 



62 LECTURE II. 

Vasavaclattd that Udayana had to flee from his 
kingdom to a frontier village called Lavaiiaka. 
The enemy, who overran his territory, was 
Aruni, ^ who appears to have been ruling to the 
north of the Ganges. Might he be a king of 
Kosala ? At any rate, the Ratncwall clearly 
represents a king of Kosala to be Udayana's 
enemy. The disaster was thought by 
Yaugandharayana to be so serious that the help 
of Pradyota, which was naturally expected, 
was not regarded to be sufficient, and marriage 
alliance with the Royal House of Magadha 
considered indispensable. But this was possible 
only if Udayana agreed to marry Padmavati, 
sister of the Magadha king. Udayana, however, 
was so attached to Vasavadatta that he could 
not brook he idea of having another wife so 
Ions: as she was alive. Vasavadatta must, 
therefore, disappear for a time, thought the 
Prime-minister, so that Udayana could believe 
her to be dead and could therefore agree to 
marry Padmavati. When once the king was 
out a-hunting, the place was set on fire, as 
previously planned, after Vasavadatta and 
Yaugandharayana quietly left it. Everybody 
thought that the latter two had been consigned 
to the flames. On his return when the king 
knew about the disaster, he was overwhelmed 
with grief, from which, however, in course of 

1 pp. 60-1 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 6c 

time he recovered. There was thus no 
difficulty in bringing about the contemplated 
marriage alliance, and Udavana was married to 
Padmavati. Soon after his marriage and before 
he left Rajagriha, his minister Eumanvat had 
already apparently with the help sent by 
Mahasena ^ driven away Aruni from the Vatsa 
kingdom and to the north of the Ganges, where 
it seems he was joined by Udayana along with 
the forces of the Magadha king, with the 
express object of killing Aruni. And we may 
assume that he soon succeeded in accomplish- 
ing his object. 

According to the Pali Buddhist canon, 
Udayana had a son named Bodhi, wlio most 
probably is identical with Vahlnara of the 
Puranas. Bodhi is represented as ruling over the 
Bhagga country at Suriisumaragiri, apparently as 
Yuvaraja. ' He got a z'ar/r/A^l'i or carpenter to build 
for him a palace which he called Ivokanada, but 
fearing that the artisan may build a similar 
excellent palace for another j)rince, Bodhi had 
his eyes plucked out. There is a suttanta in the 
Ilajjhima-Nlkaija which is devoted to him and 
is called Bodhi-raja-kumara-sutta. Beyond this 
we know nothing reliable about this dynasty. ^ 

^ There can be no doubt that Mahasena sent snccoiir to Udayana 
as the hitter acknowledges it. {Svwpivi Y., p. 68). 

" JZd. III. lo7. 

= For the anecdote about Udayana and Pindola, see Ju,t. IV. 
375, 



64 LECTURE II. 

Such is also the case with the dynasty that 
ruled over the Avanti country with its capital 
at Ujjain. I have just mentioned that a king 
of this family was Pradyota, who was a contem- 
porary of Buddha. The Furanas make him the 
founder of the dynasty. In Bhasa's dramas he 
is frequently called Mahasena. Erom his queen 
Angaravati he had a daughter Vasavadatta 
espoused by Udayana, as mentioned above. We 
do not know much about his conquests, and all 
we know about him in this respect is the state- 
ment of the Majjliima-Nikaya ^ that Ajatasatru, 
king of Magadha, was fortifying his capital 
Bajagriha because he was afraid of an invasion 
of his territory by Fradyota. Bhasa speaks of 
his two sons, viz. Gopala and Palaka. ^ Gopala, 
it is said, was of the same age as Udayana. 
Katha-scmt-sagara ^ says that after the death of 
Pradyota, Gopala abdicated the throne of Ujjain 
in favour of his younger brother Palaka. This 
is not improbable, and also accounts for the 
omission of his name in the Puranas. The 
Mrichchhakatika ^ further tells us that Palaka 
was ousted by Aryaka, son of Gopala, who was 
in hiding for a long time in a settlement of 
herdsmen. What appears to be the truth is 
that Pradyota was succeeded not by Gopala 

^ III. 7. 

- Prafijflu-T., 35. 

' 3 III. 62-3, I am indebted to Mr. H. K, Deb for this reference. 

* (BSS. Ed.) pp. 189 & 306. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 65 

but by his younger brother Palaka, and that 
Gopala's son Aryaka, not hking the idea of being 
deprived of the throne, conspired against his 
uncle, and succeeded in usurping the throne. 
The Puranas omit the name of Gopala, — which 
is not strange as he resigned the throne in favour 
of his brother, and mention those of Palaka and 
Aryaka. The latter is mentioned as Ajaka, 
which I have no doubt stands for Ajjaka i.e. 
Aryaka. ^ They, however, place one Yisakhayupa 
between Palaka and Aryaka — which is a mistake. 
A^isakhayupa, if there was a prince of such a 
name in this dynasty, must have come after 
Aryaka. We now pass on to the Kosala 
dynasty. The only princes of this royal family 
known to us from the Buddhist works are 
Pasenadi and his son Vidudabha. I suspect 
that they belonged to the Ikshvaku family 
described by the Puranas, which, in the enumera- 
tion of its members, mention one Prasenajit 
which, I think, is the Sanskrit form of Pasenadi. 
Kshudraka is mentioned as the name of 
Prasenajit's son, and it is possible that tbis was 
another name of Vidudabha. Majjhima-NiMya ^ 
calls Pasenadi King of Kasi-Kosala, and from 
the preamble of Bhadda-sala Jataka, ^ we learn 
that the territory held by the Sakyas was also 



^ This identification was first proposed by Mr. K. P. JayasAval 
(JBORS., 1915, 107). 
^ II. 111. 
3 Jat., IV. 14-i & ff 



66 LECTURE II. 

subordinate to him. Paseiiadi had an amatya 
called Siri-Vaddha and a favourite elephant 
named Eka-puiidarika. ' One of his queens was 
Mallika, who was originally daughter of the 
chief of garland-makers in Sravasti ^. She was 
only sixteen when Pasenadi married her, and as 
she was married when he was at war with 
Ajatas'atru, she seems to have been married at 
his practically old age by Pasenadi. Never- 
theless Mallika predeceased him. Pasenadi 
had a daughter called Vajira or Yajiri. She 
was married to Ajatas'atru, as I shall tell you 
later on. With a pious desire to become a 
kinsman of Buddha, Pasenadi sent envoys to 
the Sakyas with a request to give him a Sakya 
girl in marriage. The Sakyas, through their 
pride of birth, were unwilling to give him any 
girl of pure blood, and sent one Vasabha-Khat- 
tiya, born to a Sakya named Mahanaman from 
a slave woman. She was married to king Pase- 
nadi and raised to the rank of the Chief 
Queen. ^ She gave birth to Vidudabha, who 
succeeded him. When Vidudabha became a 
grown-up boy, he went to the Sakya country 
against the wishes of his mother, where he was 
subjected to a series of indignities. There the 
real origin of his mother became known. The 

1 Maj.l<l., II. 112. 
- Jat, III. 405. 
« Aii'j.-N., III. 57. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 67 

news reached the ears of Pasenadi, who was 
enraged with the Sakyas and degraded both 
Vasabha-Khattiya and Vidudabha, l)ut reinstated 
them upon the intercession of Buddha. As 
soon as Vidudabha came to the throne, he 
marched to the Sakya territory, massacred the 
Sakyas, and thus wreaked his vengeance for 
which he was burning ever since he came to 
know about the fraud practised by them. It is 
said that thrice Buddha dissuaded A^idudabha 
from carrying out this wholesale carnage of the 
Sakyas, but it is difficult to say how far this 
is true. Erom Buddhist works we gather a 
great deal about the fights between the rulers 
of Kosala and Magadha, but about these we 
shall come to know shortly. 

We now come to describe the dynasty or 
rather the dynasties that ruled over Magadha. 
The first of these is the family to which be- 
longed Bimbisara and his son Ajatascitru, who, 
you will remember, were contemporaries of 
Buddha. The authority which is generally 
followed in s^ivins; an account of this familv is 
the Puraiias. But there is another authority, 
which is more reliable, but which is neglected. I 
mean the Sinhalese chronicle Mahavaiiisa. The 
Puranic account, I am afraid, is anything but 
satisfactory, so far as the order of succession, 
at any rate, is concerned, though I quite believe 
the scraps of information they supply in regard 



68 LECTUEE II. 

to some princes. According to the Puranas 
SisLinaga was the founder of this dynasty and 
Bimbisara was its fourth prince. And they 
also tell us that the Pradyota dynasty consisted 
of five kings and that they were supplanted by 
Sisunaga. Bimbisara is thus ten generations 
removed from Pradyota, whereas, as a matter 
of fact, we know that both Avere contem- 
poraries of each other, being contemporaries 
of Buddha. Again, though the tradition as 
to individual names is not very unstable 
in the different Puranas, the same cannot he 
said in regard to the period of the individual 
reigns which vary considerably. What is 
also strange is that they assign a period of 363 
years to ten consecutive reigns, i.e. at least 36 
■ years to each reign which is quite preposterous 
and utterly unknown to Indian History. ^ This 
indicates a desperate attempt on the part of the 
Puranas to till up the gaps in the chronology 
anyhow— an inference which entirely agrees with 
their attempt at reduplicating names and assi^-n- 
ing them to consecutive kings, such as Kshema- 
dharman and Kshemavit, Nandivardhana, and 
Mahanandin, and so fourth. Further, it is 
worthy of note that the Mahavamsa mentions 
hat name of the king Munda, which is entirely 
omitted from the Purana list. The existence 



1 Most of these arguments have been already urged by W. Geio-er 
iu his translation of the MahavoTiisu (PTS. Ed.), Intro. xJiv & ff. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 69 

of this king is now sufficiently attested hj the 
Aiiguttara-Nihaya and the Asokcir-adana. Next, 
the Mahavariisa makes Udayahhadda (or Udayi) 
the immediate successor of Ajatas'atru, hut the 
Puranas place one Darsaka in between. That 
surely is highly questionable, because the Dlgha- 
Nikaya speaks of Udayabhadra as Ajatasatru's 
son, but we have no such evidence in respect 
of Dars'aka. I am aware, it may be argued, 
that Darsaka has, as a matter of fact, been men- 
tioned by Bhasa in the Svapna- Vasavadattcl, as 
a king of Magadha whose sister Padmavati was 
married to Udayana of Kausambi, and that it 
is possible that he was another son of Ajatasatru 
and might have been the latter's immediate 
successor, his brother Udayabhadra coming to 
the throne after him. But this argument does 
not appear to be sound to me, because how old, 
I ask, could Udayana be when he married 
Padmavati ? To make the case favourable to 
the other side, we will suppose that he was 
wedded to her in the very first year of Dars'aka's 
accession to the throne. We know that Baddha 
preached not only to Udayana but also to his 
son Bodhi. To make the case more favourable, 
we shall suppose that Bodhi was then only six- 
teen years old, and that Bodhi was born when 
Udayana also was sixteen. Udayana thus must 
have been at least thirty-two years old, when 
Buddha preached to Bodhi. We will also 



70 LECTUKE II. 

concede that Bacldlia died the same year that he 
delivered the sermon to Bodhi. And we know 
that Buddha died in tlie eighth regnal year of 
Ajatasatru and that the latter reigned twenty- 
four years after Buddha's death. We thus see 
that Udayana was at least thirty two years old 
when Bnddha died and therefore fifty-six years 
old when Ajatasatru ceased to reign. Udayana 
was thus married in his fifty-seYenth year, i.e. 
in the first year of Darsaka's reign. Is it the 
proper age for the hero to make love to the 
heroine, and is it proper for the poet to descrihe 
it ? ^ Verily there must be some mistake some- 
where. Bhasa evidently followed the tradition 
that was current in his time, i.e. most probably 
in the third century A. D. By that time the 
Puranas, througli the corruption of their texts, 



^ I admit that Udayana's marriage witli Padmavati was of a 
political character, and that it is quite possible to argue that it does not 
matter if the hero represented is in his decline of age. On the other hand, 
however, we have to note first that Svap7ia-Vusavndatta is not a poli- 
tical drama like Mudra-Rakshasa. Secondly, wliat I cannot understand 
is the love-sickness of the newlj wedded couple which is certainly des- 
cribed in the drama and which such a dramatist of fine delicate sentiment 
as Bhasa would certainly have suppressed if he had thought that 
Udaj'ana was on the other side of fifty. On p. 35 Udayana speaks 
of himself as being pierced by the sixth ai-row of the God of love. On 
p. 49 VidOshaka refers to the Madan-ugni-daha of Udayana caused 
by his second marriage and intensified by the bereavement of his first 
queen. In Act. V we are told that Padmavati is laid up with a hialache, 
of course, caused through love-sickness, to remove which her meeting 
with Udayana is being arranged for. I am sure that all these references 
to the love-sickness of the lovers Bhasa would have studiously avoided if 
according to him they had been an ill-assorted couple. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 71 

must have become full of contradictions and 
discrepancies, and must have been more than 
once tampered with to make them yield an 
intelligent story. Eor these reasons I cannot 
help thinking that it is not safe to rely upon 
the account furnished by the Puranas for this 
early period so far at any rate as the order 
of succession and the duration of individual 
reigns are concerned. The tradition preserved 
in the Mahavaiiisa about the Mas-adha dvnasties 

O ft 

seems to me more reliable. At any rate, no 
inaccuracies or blunders have yet been detected 
in the account of this chronicle, whicli wonder- 
fully agrees with the scraps of information 
whicli the Puraiias furnish for some princes. 

I have already told you that the two rulers 
of Magadha who were contemporaries of Buddha 
were Bimbisara and his son Ajatas'atru. The 
name of the family to which Bimbisara belonged 
is not definitely known, but it seems that it was 
Naga. The last prince of Bimbisara's dynasty 
is called Na2:a-Dasaka bv the Mahavariisa. The 
second component of the name, viz. Dasaka, 
doubtless corresponds to the Dars'aka of the 
Puranas. And the name Naga has been prefixed 
to Dasaka to distinguish him from his successor 
who belone^ed to a somewhat different family 
and who has therefore been called Susu-Naga, 
or Little Naga. Dars'aka, and thus Bimbisara, 
belonged to the Great Naga dynasty. We do 



72 LECTURE II. 

not know whether any kings of his djrnasty 
preceded Bhnhisara. They have certainly not 
been mentioned by the Mahavamsa, but there 
was no need for this chronicle to mention them, 
its sole object being to describe the events of 
the period beginning with Buddha and not 
anterior to him. The Puranas no doubt re- 
present at least four kings to have ruled before 
Bimbisara, but their authority for this period, 
as I have just stated, is disputable. The proba- 
bility is that Bimbisara was the founder of his 
dynasty, because Bimbisara has in the Pali 
Canon been called Seniya, which is the same 
thing as Senapati. We know that Pushpamitra, 
founder of the Sunga dynasty, was designated 
Senapati, and we have the authority of the 
Puranas that Pushpamitra was actually the 
commander-in-chief of the last king of the 
Maurya family that he supplanted. It is not 
at all impossible that Bimbisara was the general 
of the Power that ruled over Magadha before 
him and that if he did not actually destroy it, 
he at any rate declared his independence and 
carved out a kingdom for himself. The 
question here arises : who could be exercising 
sway over Magadha prior to Bimbisara ? 
A passage in one of the oldest Buddhist 
documents speaks of Vesali as Magadham 
pttram, ^ capital of the Magadha country. 

1 Sutta-Niiiata, p. 185, v. 38. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 73 

If Yesali was thus the capital of the Magadha 
kingdom, it is quite possible that it was at 
the expense of the A^ajjls that Bimbisara 
secured territory for himself. Accordinsr to the 
Puranas Magadha was originally held by the 
Barhadratha family. Then, it seems, occurred 
the inroads of the Vajjis, who held Magadha. 
In the early years of Buddha, Bimbisara thus 
appears to have seized Magadha after expelling 
the Vajjis beyond the Ganges and to have estab- 
lished himself at Rajagriha, the old capital of 
the kingdom. This was not the only conquest 
achieved by him. Bimbisara conquered Anga 
also and incorporated it into his dominions. In 
the Majjhima-Nikaya ^ we have mention of a 
king of Aiiga who gave a daily pension of 500 
kjirshapanas to a Brahmaii. The name of this 
king has not been specified, but there can bfe 
little doubt that is was this prince from w^hdm 
Bimbisara wrested Anga. It was doubtless 
these conquests that gave Bimbisara sovereign- 
ty over 80,000 townships, ^ the overseers of 
which, it appears, he was in the habit of calling 
to an assembly for personally discussing state, 
-matters and receivins^ his instructions. . __ 

The Mahavagga ^ says that Bimbisara had 
500 wives. Of these one was, we know, a 
Vaidehi princess. According to an early Jaina 



1 II. 163. - Mahavagga, v. 1. 1 & S. 

- VIII. 1. 15. ' 



74 LECTURE II. 

authority she was Chellana, daughter of 
Chetaka, a Lichchavi, Chief of Vaisall. ^ It is 
quite possible that this matrimonial alliance was 
a result of the peace concluded after the war 
between Bimbisara and the Lichchhavis. His 
another queen was Kosaladevi, daughter of 
Mahakosala, who was father of Pasenadi. The 
father, when he married his daughter to the 
king Bimbisara, gave a village of the Kasi 
country, yielding a revenue of a hundred thou- 
sand, as her nahana-Ghunna-miilrf, i.e. bath and 
perfume money. ^ Erom his Vaidehi queen 
Bimbisara had a son called Ajatasatru. ^ He 
had also another son, named Abhaya, but we do 
not knoAV who the latter's mother was. When 
Abhaya was once going to attend upon his 
father, king Bimbisara, he saw an infant 
exposed on a dust-heap. ^ He took up the 
infant, nourished him, and named him Jivaka 
Komarabhachcha. Jivaka went to Takshasila, 
and learnt the science of medicine. He returned 
to Bajagriha and showed his expert knowledge 
by speedily curing king Bimbisara of fistula. 
Bimbisara was so pleased that he appointed 
Jivaka as physician to the royal household 

1 SBE. XXTI, Intro, xiii. 

* JaMI. 403. 15. 

' Ibid. III. 121-2 make Kosaladevi to be Ajatasatru's mother, and 
Sani'N. I. 84 speaks of him as bhagineyya to Pasenadi. But this is a 
mistake, because in the ChuUavagga Ajatasatru is invariably called 
Yedehiputto. 

* Mahavagga, viii, 1, 4 & ff. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 75 

and to the fraternity of the Bhikshus headed 
by Buddha. Bimbisara had at least two 
more sons. One of them was Silavat born at 
Rajagriha, ^ The other was Vimala-Kondaiina 
from Queen Ambapali. ' As Vimala bears the 
Brahman clan-name of Kondanna (=Kaundi- 
nya), it appears that his mother was a Brahman 
woman. The priuees, Abhaya, Silavat and 
Vimala, all became Buddhist monks, probably 
through fear of Ajatasatru after he became 
king. When by murdering his father, as we 
shall just see, Ajatasatuu seized the throne he 
must have attempted to assassinate his brothers 
also, who therefore must have thought it dis- 
creet to embrace Buddhism and become monks. 
We have got evidence at least in the case of 
Silavat whom according to the Thera-therl-gatha 
Ajatasatru was anxious to put to death. 

I have just referred to the murder of 
Bimbisara by his son Ajatasatru. The story is 
just this. Being instigated by Devadatta, 
cousin but enemy to Buddha, Ajatasatru con- 
ceived the design of killing his father and 
obtaining the kingdom. With that object in 
view he once entered the private chamber of 
the king at an unusual hour with a dagger in his 
hand. He was, however, seized upon by the 
officers in attendance and taken before the king. 



1 Tftera-garta (trans.), .269. 
> Ibid., 65. 



7,6 LECTURE II. 

On learning that his son wanted to kill him 

because he wanted the kiDgdom, Bimbisara at 

once handed over the reins of government to 

him.' But the prince was not satisfied with 

this, and in order to make his position quite 

secure, he at the advice of Devadatta managed 

to kill his father by starvation. While once 

he was listening to a sermon of Buddha 

he was suddenly striken with remorse and 

confessed his sin before him I Although 

there is no sound reason to distrust the story 

of this parricide, the explanation which Buddhist 

texts give of his name, viz. Ajatasatru, scarcely 

deserves any credence. It is said that even 

when he was in his mother's Avomb, he conceived 

a longing for his father's blood, which was 

gratified only by the mother drinking it from the 

right knee of Bimbisara, and that because he 

had thus been his father's enemy (safru), while 

yet unborn (aj'dta), he was named Ajatas'atru. 

This is nothing but a pun. ■' 

I have told you that when king Mahakosala, 
father of Pasenadi, married his daughter to 
Bimbisara, he granted a Kasi village as dowry. 
When Ajatasatru put Bimbisara to death, . 
Kosaladevi died of grief. For sometime after 
this queen's death, Ajatasatru continued to 
enjoy the revenues of this village, but Pasenadi 

'- ChuUavagga, vii. 3. 5. 

"- Jat, Y. 261-2, Digha-N. I. 85 ; SBB., II. 94, 
^ Jat. III. 121-2, 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 77 

resolved that no parricide should have a village 
wjiicli was his by right of inheritance and so 
confiscated it. There was thus war betwixt 
Ajatas'atru and Pasenadi. The former was 
fierce and strong, and the latter old and feeble. 
So Pasenadi was beaten again and again. Now, 
at the time when he had returned to his capi- 
tal Sravasti after suffering his last reverse, 
Buddha was staying close by with his fraternity 
of bhikshus. Amongst those there were many 
who formerly Avere officers of the king. Two of 
these at dawn one day were discussing the 
nature of the war, and one of them emphati- 
cally declared that if Pasenadi but gave Ajata- 
satru battle by arranging his army in the sakata- 
vyTtha array, he could have him like a fish in 
lobster pot. The king's couriers, who happened 
to overhear the conversation, informed him. 
Pasenadi seized the hint, and immediately set out 
with a great host. He took Ajatas'atru prisoner 
and bound him in chains. After a few days he 
released him, gave him his daughter. Princess 
Vajira, in marriage, and dismissed her with that 
Kasi village for her bath-money, which was for 
lono" the bone of contention between the two 
royal families. ^ 

Ajatasatru was at war also Avith the Lichchha- 
vis of* Vesali. I have already told you that 
his mother was a Vaidehl Princess. This means 



» Jat. II. 237 & 403-4 ; IV. 343 ; Sam-N. I. 83-5, 



18 



LECTTJRE II. 



that she belonged to the Lichchhavi clan. 
Ajafcasatru was thus at war with his relations 
on his mother's side. He seems to have pursued 
the policy inaugurated by his father. We have 
seen that it was at the expense of the Lich- 
chhavis that Bimbisara made himself master of 
the Magadha kingdom. And now his son 
Ajatas'atru conceived the design of destroying 
the independence of the Lichchhavis. It ap- 
pears that at this time the Ganges separated 
the Magadha from the Videha kingdom, and 
that Pataligrama, which afterwards rose to 
great importance and became celebrated as 
Pataliputra, was then on the frontier of the 
Magadha territory. At any rate, this is the 
impression produced on our mind on reading 
the Mahaparlnibbcma'Siitta, ^ which is concerned 
with the decease of Buddha. The same 
Sutta also gives us tlie impression that 
Patalis^rama was on the road from Vesali 
to llajagriha. It was, therefore, absolutely 
necessary to fortify Pataligrama. And when, 
shortly before his death, Buddha visited 
Pataligrama, Sunidha and Yassakara, Chief 
Ministers of Magadha, were busy building a 
fortress there to repel the Yajjis, i.e. Lichchhavis. 
The Jaina Nirayavali-sutra informs us that 
Ajatas'atru fixed a quarrel on Ghetaka, a 
Lichchhavi Chief of Vesali, his grandfather and 



I. 26 ; Mahavagga, vi. 28. 7 & 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 79 

went forth to attack him. ^ Nine confederate 
Lichchhavi and nine confederate Malla kings 
came to his assistance but it was of no avail, 
and the YajJTs or Lichchhavis were ere long 
subjecled to the sway of Ajatasatru along with 
the Mallas. 

Ajatasatru was succeeded by his son 
Udayabhadra who is no doubt the same as the 
Udayin of the Puranas. According to i\\Q Dlgha- 
Nikaya, as we have seen, Ajatas'atru looked upon 
him as his favourite son, but it was this favourite 
son who for the sake of kingdom murdered his 
father, as the Mahavaiiisa ^ tells us. The 
Puranas say that he made Kusumapura on the 
southern bank of the Ganges his capital. ^ 
Kusumapura is but another name for Pataliputra, 
and there is nothing strange in Udayabhadra's 
removing his capital from Pvajagriha to Patali- 
putra. The Magadha kingdom was very much 
extended during the reign of Ajatas'atru. The 
dominions of (he Lichchhavis and Mallas and 
some parts of even Kosala were annexed to it. 
Such an extensive kingdom required a central 
capital, and this idea was well fulfilled by 
Pataliputra, which, though in the first instance 
it was fortified to repel and subdue the 
Lichchhavis, admirably served the purpose of a 
central seat of government. 



SBB. xxii. Intro, xiv. 
IV, 1. 
P.argiter,22&69. 



€0 LECTURE II. 

Udayabhadra reigned for sixteen years. He 
was succeeded by Auuruddha, and the latter by 
Munda. A period of eight years has been 
assigned to them. No reference to Anuruddha 
has so far been traceable in the Buddhist 
literature, but the Ahguttara-Nikaya ^ does 
make mention of Munda, king of Pataliputra. 
His queen, Bhadra-devi died, and the king was 
simply overwhelmed with grief. His Treasurer 
Priyaka became intensely anxious on his account, 
and arranged for an interview between the king 
and Narada, a Buddhist monk, who had at that 
time come to Pataliputra in the course of his 
religious tour. Narada's religious discourse 
made a deep impression on Munda and gave him 
strength of mind to overcome his grief. 

Munda was succeeded by Naga-Dasaka. 
I told you a short while ago that Dasaka 
of this composite name corresponded to the 
Darsaka of the Puraiias, and Naga was 
prefixed to his name to show that he pertained 
to the principal Naga dynasty. The tradition 
mentioned by Bhasa that Padmavati married 
to Udayana was his sister does not appear 
to be probable, and you have already seen 
the reasons I have set forth. The Mahavamsa 
says that from Ajatas'atru down to Darsaka 
we had kings who were parricides, and that the 
people, who were, therefore, disgusted with this 

^ III. 57 A ff. 



POLITICAL HISTORY. 81 

dynasty, aided one Susu-Naga, who was an 
amatya or minister apparently of Darsaka, to 
oust him and secure the throne. Susu-Nas:a, 
as I have said, does not seem to be a proper 
name. It denotes a branch of the Naga family, 
and as sometimes a king is designated by his 
family name alone without specification of hi^ 
individual name, the family name Susu-Naga^ 
or Sisu-Naga of the Puranas, has been employed 
to denote the usurper of Darsaka's sovereignty. 
Anyhow this usurper was not an outsider, but a 
prince of the Naga dynasty though of a branch 
line. The Puranas inform us that Sasu-Naga 
annihilated the renown of the Pradyota dynasty, 
placed his son in Varanasi or Benares, and made 
Girivraja (Rajglr) his capital. ^ The Puranas 
evidently tell us that Susu-Naga made himself 
master not only of Magadha but also of Avanti 
and Kas'i-Kosala. This seems to be correct, and 
to this we may add that he probably annexed 
the Vatsa kingdom also to his empire. We 
know that Pradyota, Pasenadi (Prasenajit), 
Bimbisara and Udayana were contemporaries, 
and their families, curiously enough, became 
extinct four generations after them, i. e. about 
the rise of Susu-Nas^a. The latter was thus 
practically a ruler of the whole of Northern 
India except the Panjab. Being thus a powerful 
monarch and practically of the same family as 

1 Pargiter, 21 & 68. 



82 LECTURE II. 

Bimbisara, he was, in later times when the 

Pnranas were recast, placed at the head of the 

family, and all the kinsfs styled Sisunagas after 

him. Sisunaga reigned for eighteen years and 

was succeeded by his son As'oka. To distinguish 

him from Asoka, the Maury a Emperor, he was 

designated Kalas'oka, the epithet kala indicating 

his black complexion. This also explains why 

he was called Kakavarna in the Paranas. As a 

Burmese tradition informs us, he removed his 

capital from E^ajagriha to Pataliputra. ^ This is 

exactly in keeping with the Mahavaiiisa, ^ which 

represents Kalasoka to be established in Pushpa- 

pura, i.e. Pataliputra. The only event which, 

we know, took place in the reign of Kalasoka 

was the holding of the second Buddhist Council. 

It was held in Vesali under this king in the 

year 383 — 2 B. C. and led to the separation of the 

Mahasamghikas from the Theravada ^. Kalasoka 

reigned for twenty-eight years only. After him 

his ten sons conjointly ruled over the Magadha 

empire. Their names are : (1) Bhadrasena, 

(2) Korandavarna, (3) Mangura, (4) Sarvanjaha, 

(5) Jalika, (6) Ubhaka, (7) Saiijaya, (8) Kora- 

vya, (9) Nandivardhana and (10) Paiichamaka. * 

Nandivardliana of this is most probably 



1 SEE. XI. Intro, xvi. 

2 IV. 32. 

3 Mahavaiiisa (trans. Geiger), Intro., lix. 
* Mahahodhivarhsa, 98. 



i-olitiCal history. 83 

Nandivardhana of the Puranic list.^ These ten 
brothers held joint sway over the Magadha 
dominions for about twenty-two years and were 
supplanted by the Nanda dynasty. Nine mem- 
bers of this dynasty are said in the Mahavariisa ^ 
to have reigned in succession and for a period 
of tw^enty two years. They were most probably 
one father and eight sons as mentioned in the 
Puranas. ^ They were : (1) Ugrasena, (2) Pan- 
duka, (3) Fanclugati, (4) Bhutapala, (5) Eashtra- 
pala, (6) Govishanaka, (7) Dasasiddhaka, (8) 
Kaivarta and (9) Dhana. ^ As Ugrasena heads 
the list, it seems that he was the father and the 
remaining princes his sons. The chief of the 
Nandas, according to all the Puranas, is Maha- 
padma. The commentary on the Bhagavata- 
Purana says that he was so called because he was 
the lord of soldiers or wealth numbering or 
amounting to 100,000 millions. Probably the 
correct meaning would be th^t he was master of 
as big an army as could be arrayed in a padma- 
vyuha or in a lotus fashion. ^ This agrees with 
"the fact that in Buddhist works he has been 
styled Ugrasena, i.e. possessed of a terrific 
army. 

1 Pargiter, 22. ^ V. 15. 

3 "^In this i-especb the Paranas agree among themselves. They, 
however, differ in regard to the sequence of their rule, some saying 
that they all reigned conjointly, and some, in succession. 

* Mahahodhivathsd, 98. . , - ■ 

* lA., XLIV, 49-50. 



M LECTURIJ II. 

The Puranas say that Ugrasena-Mahapadma 
was so powerful that he uprooted all the Ksha- 
triyas like Parasurama, brought the whole earth 
under one royal umbrella, and made himself 
eka-rat^ sole monarch. Let us pause here for a 
moment and see what this means. I have tol(i 
you that shortly before Buddha lived, that part 
of India which was Aryanised was divided into 
sixteen different states, of which, excepting two, 
all were petty kingships. But the process of 
Centralisation had begun, and we find that these 
tiny kingships had already developed into four 
monarchies in the time of Buddha. Gradually 
these monarchies themselves were being dissolved 
and coalesced into one, but they did not culmi- 
nate into a full-fledged imperialism until a 
century after the demise of Buddha. We have 
seen above how the Magadha Empire gra- 
dually extended and swallowed not only the 
Kasi-Kosala country of the Ikshvakus, but also 
th^ Avanti territory of the Pradyotas and the 
Kausambl kingdom of the Vatsas. And when 
tJgrasena-Mahapadma has been expressly repre- 
sented by the Puranas to have exterminated the 
Kshatriyas and brought the earth under his sole 
-sway, it means, I think, that he made himself 
master of about that whole portion of India 
.which was familiar to the Aryans, i.e. of almost. 
all the sixteen countries into which India was 
divided in Buddha's time and which I have 



POLITICAL HISTORY. ,85 

already enumerated about the beginning of this 

lecture. In other words, Ugrasena-Mahapadma 

was a Ohakravartin or universal monarch. The 

idea of Ohakravartin is very ancient in India. 

The Aitareya-Brahmana, e.g. makes mention of 

some kings, who, after their anointing, conquered 

the whole earth and performed a horse-sacrifice. 

What we have in this connection to bear in 

mind is that by ' earth ' is meant not the whole 

earth as it is known to us at the present day but 

rather the earth as it was known to the Aryans 

at the time when the Ohakravartin is said to 

have lived and conquered. Mahapadma was 

thus but one Ohakravartin and was the 

Ohakravartin of the period we have selected. 

Kautilya in his Arthasastra^ speaks of the 

Ohakravartin as if the latter was not a novel 

ruler at all in his day and tells us that his domain 

coincided with the greater portion of the space 

between the Himalayas and the ocean and with 

an area of a thousand yojanas. This no doubt 

answers to the extent of the Mauryan 

empire, and as from the language of Kautilya 

the Ohakravartin was not an unfamiliar figure 

in his time, it appears that there was at least 

one Ohakravartin before the Mauryas came to 

power, and there is, therefore, nothing strange in 

our taking Mahapadma to be a Ohakravartin on 

1 p. 338. 



86 ' LECTUUE if. 

the authority of the Puranas. It is time there- 
fore to give up the view that the Indians for the 
first time gained their idea of Chakravartin froM 
Alexander's invasion. 



LECTUEE III. 
Administrative History. 

(a) Literature on Hindu Folity. 

In this and the next lecture I propose to 
deal with the administrative history of the 
period. This history may be of two kinds : 
(1) history of the literature bearing upon the 
science and art of government and (2) history 
setting forth the actual practices and systems 
of administration prevalent in the period. The 
latter is not possible without the former. It is, 
therefore, absolutely necessary to know before- 
hand what sort of literature was extant in our 
period relating to political science, or Arthasastra 
as it was called. 

South India has recently become a land of 
discoveries. Not many years ago the students 
of ancient Indian poetics were taken by surprise 
by the discovery of Bhamaha's work on Alam- 
kara in Trivandrum. The dramas of Bhasa, 
the celebrated dramatist who preceded Kalidasa, 
had for a long time remained hidden from 
modern eyes until they were discovered seven 
years ago at the same place, viz. Trivandrum. 
Such was the case with the Arthasastra of 
Kautilya. That a work dealing with the science 
of politics was composed by l^autilya had been 



88 LECTURE III. 

testified to by various more or less early Indian 
writers who have not only referred to the author 
but also given quotations from his work. But 
the work had been looked upon as entirely lost, 
and it was a great though agreeable surprise to 
every scholar and antiquarian when, in the 
January number of the Indian Antiquary^ 1905, 
Mr. E;. Shamasastry not only announced the 
discovery of this work at Tan j ore but actually 
published a translation of some of its chapters.) 
The whole book was afterwards edited and 
translated, by the same scholar and is being more 
and- more eagerly and thoroughly studied, but it 
will be. still long before we are able to show 
what flood of light it throws not only on ancient 
polity but also on economics, law, ethics and 
so forth. 

When the Arthasastra of Kautilya was fi;rst 
published, it evoked a great deal of criticism 
more or less of an adverse nature. But now 
there is a consensus of opinion among scholars 
that on the ground of the archaic style and 
the social and religious life depicted therein the; 
work has certainly to be assigned to the period^ 
B.C. 321-296 as it claims to belong. Any student 
who has even cursorily read the book know^ 
that it bristles with quotations from the authors 
of the Arthasastra who were prior to Kautilya. 
It therefore follows that if these authors were 
known to Kautilya, their works were certainly; 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 89 

known and studied in the period we have 
selected, especially as it immediately precedes 
Chandragupta, the founder of the Maurya 
dynasty, whose prime-minister Kautilya was. 
It is therefore very important to know who are 
these authors that have been referred to by 
Kautilya. The list of those that I have been 
able to frame is as follows : — 

Schools. 

1. Manavah, pp. 6, 29, 63, 177, 192. 

2. Barhaspatyah, pp. 6, 29, 63, 177, 192, 

373. 

3. Ausanasah, pp. 6, 29, 63, 177, 192. 

4. Parasarah, p. 63. 

5. Ambhiyah^ p. 33. 

The order in which the schools are mentioned 
is not uniform. 

Individual Authors. 

6. Bharadvaja, pp. 13, 27, 32, 253, 320, 

325, 380. 

7. Visalaksha, pp, 13, 27, 32, 320, 326, 380. 

8. Parasarah pp. 13, 27, 32, 321, 326. 

^ Ambhiyah is probably a mistake for Acharyah, as Prof. Jacobi 
thinks {Vherdie Echtheit des EautiViya in Sitzungsberichte der Koniglich 
Preussischen ATiademie der Wissenschaften, p. 837). 

^ His name has been variously spelt in the printed edition 
Parasarah, Parasarah and Parasarah. Of course, the plural form is 

12 



90 



LECTURE III. 



9. Pisuna\ pp. 14, 28, 33, 251, 321, 327. 

10. Kaiinapadanta^ pp. 14, 33, 321, 327. 

11. Yatavyadhi, pp. 14, 33, 261, 322, 328. 

12. Bahudantlputra^, p. 14. 

These authors (Nos. 6-12) are specified in the 
above serial order. 

These have been 
mentioned but 
once. Of these 
again Charayana 
and Ghota(ka)- 
mukha have 
been mentioned 
by Vatsyayana 
as authors of the 
different parts 
of the Science 
of Erotics. 



13. Katyayana, p. 251 

14. KaninkaBharadvaja,, 

15. Dirgha-Gharayana „ 

16. Ghotamukha „ 

17. Kinjalka „ 

18. Pisunaputra „ 



inadmissible, where this name has been mentioned along with those 
of individual authors. Of the remaining two, Paraiarah appears to me 
to be the correct form, because it has been so mentioned in Eamandalca, 
VIII. 39, where, again, the metrical exigencies require Parasarah and 
not Parasarah. Parasarah stands in the same relation to Parasarah as 
Usanah of Kamandaka does to his Eavayah (VIII-22 & 27). 

^ Pisuna was another name of NSrada ; and we know that he was 
the author of a work on kingly duties from the passage Naradiyavi = 
iv = avarnyamana-rajadharmam from the Kadamhart (Bo. Sk. Series, 
p. 91j 1- 13). This passage cannot possibley refer to the Nurada-Smriti, 
because it does not deal with kingly duties. 

^ According to the Trihandaiesha, Kaunapadanta is another 
name for Bhishma, and it is not at all improbable that Kaunapadanta's 
work is represented by the present Rajadharm-anusasana of Bhishma 
in the Santi-Parvan of the Mahabharata. 

s The correct form of the name must be Bahudantiputra as has 
been shown further on in the text. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 91 

Now the question arises have any of these 
names been mentioned anywhere ? Those who 
have read the Mahabharata need not be told 
that some of these certainly occur in the Santi- 
Parvan. Chapter 58 of this Parvan sets forth 
no less than seven names of the authors of the 
treatises on kingly duties. They are (1) Brihaspati, 
(2) Visalaksha, (3) Kavya, (4) Mahendra, (5) Pra- 
ehetasa Manu, (6) Bharadvaja and (V) Gaurasiras. 
Except the last, viz. Gaurasiras, all are identifiable 
with the names specified by Kautilya. Brihas- 
pati must be the founder of the Barhaspatya, 
Kavya, the same as Sukra, of the Ausanasa, and 
Manu, of the Manava, School. In regard to 
Manu it is to be noted that here he has been 
called Prachetasa which distinguishes him from 
Svayambhuva Manu, the author of the Dharma- 
sastra, and from Vaivasvata Manu, the first king 
of the human species.^ Bharadvaja of the ^anti- 
Parvan must be the Bharadvaja mentioned in 
Kautilya's Arthas'astra. There thus remains one 
name, viz. Mahendra. He is identical with 
Bahudantin, the first component of the name 
Bahudantiputra referred to by Kautilya as 
we shall see shortly. 

^ In regard to SvSyambhnva Mann, the author of the Dharma- 
sastra vide Adi-P., 73.9 ; Santi-P., 335.43. In respect of Prachetasa Manu, 
vide banti-P., 57.42, after which two verses from his Raja-dharmas 
are quoted. In Vana-F., 35, 21 also, are referred to the Baja- 
dharmas of Manu who can, therefore, be no other than Prachetasa. 
Of course, no scholar will now agree with Biihler in the Tiew he has 
expressed in 8BE., XXV. Intro. Ixxvi, n. 1. 



92 LECTURE III. 

It was indeed a wise move on the part of the 
Calcutta University to have prescribed for M. A. 
History, the chapters of the Santi-Parvan, which 
treat of Rajadharma, i.e. the duties of the king, 
and which, in fact, give us good glimpses into 
the condition of the science of polity before the 
time of Kautilya. We have seen that Chapter 58 
of this Parvan gives the names of the authors of 
Bajasastra which all except one agree with those 
mentioned by Kautilya. Let us now proceed a 
step further and see what the immediately next 
chapter teaches us. This chapter gives us a 
genesis of the science of polity — how it arose 
and how it underwent alterations. Dandamti 
or Science of Polity, we are told, was 
first brought out by Erahma. It treated 
not only of the objects of the worldly 
life, viz. dharma, performance of religious 
duties, artha, attainment of wealth and kama, 
gratification of sensual desires, but also of 
moksha or final beatitude, and consisted of one 
hundred thousand chapters. As the period of 
the human life was gradually decreasing, this 
colossal work was also undergoing abridgement. 
The god ^iva was the first to shorten it into 
a treatise called Vaisalaksha after him and 
consisting of ten thousand chapters. The divine 
Indra then abridged it into a work comprising 
five thousand chapters and styled Bahudantaka 
after him. Brihaspati further reduced it to a 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 93 

work containing three thousand chapters and 
designated Barhaspatya after him. Last came 
Kavi or Usanas, who still further shortened it 
into a treatise composed of a thousand chapters 
only. Now the original work composed by 
Brahma is said to have treated of dharma, 
artha, Jcama and moksha, and comprised one 
hundred thousand chapters. In Chapter 335 
of the San ti- Par van we have another tradition 
narrated about this work. There its authorship 
has been ascribed to eight sages, who read it out 
to the god Narayana. The god was exceedingly 
pleased with what he heard, and said : 
"Excellent is this treatise that ye have composed 

consisting of a hundred thousand verses 

Guided by it Svayambhuva Manu will himself 
promulgate to the world its code of dhm^ma, 
and Usanas and Brihaspati compose their trea- 
tises based upon it." We are then told that 
this original work of the sages will last up to 
the time of king Uparicharu and disappear 
upon his death. Curiously enough, Vatsyayana, 
author of the KcmiasTdra, mentions at the besin- 
ning of this work a third tradition which is a 
combination of the first two. Prajapati or 
Brahma, says he, created people and recited 
to them a work consisting of one hundred 
thousand chapters to enable them to attain 
dliarma, artha, and kama. That part which 
related to dharma was separated by Manu, and 



94 LECTURE III. 

those which related to artha and kama were 
separated by Brihaspati and Nandin respec- 
tivelj^ We thus see that according to the 
tradition mentioned both in Chapter 59 of the 
Santi-Parvan and by Yatsyayana the original 
knowledge about the work od dharma, artha 
and kama emanated from Brahma. The first 
abridgement of Dandaniti, we have seen, is 
ascribed to Siva after whom it was named 
Vaisalaksha. The term Vaisalaksha is derived 
from Yisalaksha, which is another name for 
Siva. The author Visalaksha mentioned by 
Kautilya must therefore be taken to refer to 
the god Siva himself^ . The second abridge- 
ment was brought out by Indra, and, we are 
informed, was called Bahudantaka. Indra's 
elephant, Airavata, because he had four i.e. 
many {paJiu) tusks, could be called Bahudanta 

^ It may be asked whether it is permissible to quote the views 
and the name of a god exactly as woald be done in the case of a 
human being, and it may consequently be doubted whether Kautilya's 
Visalaksha is a divinity or a human being. It may, therefore, be 
contended that up to Kautilya's time Visalaksha was a human author 
but was afterwards looked upon as a god and mentioned as such in 
the Santi-Parvan. We know, however, that, as a matter of fact, 
Kamandaka cites the doctrines and mentions the names of Puloma 
and Indra, about whose divinity there can be no question, as if they 
were human authors, as is clear from VIII. 21. Again, nobody can 
doubt that the Santi-Parvan was existing in its present form about 
300 A.D, when Kamandaka lived. To Kamandaka, therefore, Visa- 
laksha must have been a god, and yet he speaks of the latter as 
Visalakshah prahlmshate (VIII. 28). No reasonable doubt need there- 
fore be entertained as to Kautilya's reference to Visalaksha being a 
reference to the god of that name. 



administrAlTIve history. 95 

or Bahudanta ; and because Indra possessed 
Bahudanta or Bahudanta i.e. Airavata, he could 
be called Bahudanta or Bahudantin. And it 
is from the first of these names that the science 
of polity composed by him was styled Bahu- 
dantaka. The second name can be recognised 
in Bahudantiputra mentioned by Kautilya. 
There can be no doubt that the first component 
of the latter is Bahudanti°, and not Bahudanti° i.e. 
the ending i is short and not long and that Bahu- 
danti° must here denote Indra\ In regard to the 
second component putra, we have got an exactly 
analogous case in Pis'unaputra. We have seen 
that Kautilya mentions not only Pis'una but 
also Pis'unaputra. The word putra in all 
probability signifies here 'a follower.' Thus in 
the Mrichchhakatika those, who follow the 
science of theft originated by the god Kartikeya, 
are called Skandaputras by Sarvilaka^ Bahu- 
dantiputra must therefore denote a follower 
of Bahudantin, i.e. of the system of the 
Arthasastra laid down by him. Pis'unaputra 
must similarly denote a follower of the system 
of Pis'una or Narada, who, we know, was an 



^ This, I think, is clear from the fact that Kamandaka also 
speaks of Indra as one of the authors of the Arthasastra {vide the 
preceding note). 

- Mrichchhakatika (BSS), 141. The word putra was used to 
denote also the follower of a religious system. Thus nigantha-putto 
signified a Jaina {Maj-N. I. 227. where Sachchaka is so called). 



96 LECTURE III. 

authority on the raja-dharma and is referred 
to by Bana in his Kadamharl} . The third 
abridgement is attributed to Brihaspati and 
is designated Barhaspatya. Eor the fourth, 
Kavya or Usanas was responsible. The naftie 
of his work is not specified, but it must have 
been Aus'anasa. In Chapter 59 of the Santi- 
Parvan we have a specific mention not only of 
four of the seven authors of Arthasastra enu- 
merated in Chapter 58 but also of the works 
standing to their credit. It is somewhat curious 
that Manu, Bharadvaja and Gaurasiras have here 
been passed away. But the probable expla- 
nation is that these were sages and consequently 
human beings, whereas those noticed above 
were either gods or demi-gods and that the 
object of the tradition narrated in Chapter 59 
is to establish the sacred character and the 
extreme antiquity of the Arthasastra by showing 
how it was handed down from Brahma through 
the various gods and at the same time more 
and more abridged in this process of transmis- 
sion. Of course, Manu and his work must 
have been we-ll-known at this time, for in the 
Drona-Parvan we find that one of his quali- 
fications to become the generalissimo of the 
Kaurava army Dronacharya makes a point- 
ed mention of his proficiency in Mdnavi 

1 See p. 90, n, 2. 



ADMINISIRATIVE HISTORY. 97 

Artlia-vidya} , This clearly indicates that a work 
on Arthasastra composed by Manu was well- 
known, and was held in such high repute that 
proficiency in it was considered to be a great 
merit to a general. About Bharadvaja I shall 
say something further in the sequel, but no 
reference to the work of Gaurasiras I have been 
able to trace in the Mahabharata. 

Now, here another question arises : have we 
got any evidence to show in what form the 
works of these ancient authors of the Arthasastra 
were composed ? It is indeed a very interest- 
ing fact that Santi-Parvan is not content with 
merely enumerating their names or specifying 
their works but actually quotes verses from the 
latter. Chapters 56-8 are very important in 
this respect. We have three verses cited not 
only from Manu but also from Us'anas (Bhar- 
gava) and Brihaspati. These have all been 
culled in the Appendix. This gives rise to the 
inference that their works at any rate were in 
metrical form. And in regard to the work of 
Usanas in particular, it is possible to say that 
it was in existence and in metrical form even as 
late as the time of Sankararya, commentator 
of the Kamandaklya Nltisara, for we know he 
actually quotes one verse from it.^ 

The conclusion that the works on Arthasastra 
prior to Kautilya were in verse is forced upon 



1 I A., XLVI, 95. 

2 TSS. Ed. 112. 
13 



^8 LECTURE III. 

US by a study of the latter's work also. Before, 
however, this can be demonstrated, it is neces- 
sary to find out the exact nature of the form of 
composition which his work represents. This 
is described at the end of his book in the verse : 
Drishtva vipratipatMm hahudha sastreshu 

bhashyakaranam 
svayam-=eva 'Fishm{gnptas=chaJcara sutram 
cha hhashyam clia. 

T11ANSLA.TION. 

"Having noticed discrepancy in many ways 
between the commentators on the Sastras, 
Vishnugupta himself has made the Sutra and 
the commentary." 

Unfortunately, so far as I know, the meaning 
of this verse has not been made clear by any 
scholar^ What the verse, however, evidently 
means is that in Kautilya's time a Sutra was 
interpreted differently by different commenta- 
tors and that in order that this mishap may not 
befall his w^ork he composed not only the 
Sutras but also the commentary setting forth 
his meaninsT of his Sutras. Kautilva's book, 
therefore, consists not only of Sutra but also of 

* Prof. Jacobi explains it in a different manner (loc. cit 843 & 
845). Although the verse in question distinctly says that Kautilya's 
work is both a Siitra and a Bh3shya, he seems to think it, apparently 
on the authority of the same verse, that it is, not a Sutra, but rather 
a Bhashya ! 



A DMIKISTRATIVE HISTORY. 99 

JBhashya, It is a matter of regret, however, that 
in the edition published of his Arthasastra, the 
/Sutra has not been separated from the Bhashya, 
I will explain myself more clearly. Take e.g. 
pp. 27-8 which deal with the subject of Mantr- 
adhikara. Here as elsewhere the Sutra and the 
Bhashya have been hopelessly intermixed so that 
the ordinary reader does not know that part of 
what he reads is the Sldra and part the Bhashya^ 
I will extricate the Sutras of these pages to 
show that whatever remains is the Bhashya. The 
Sutras here are as follows : 

(1) Guhyam^zeko mantrayet=:eti Bharad^ 
vajah 

(2) N=^aikasya mantra-siddhir=ast=tti 
Visalakshah 

(3) Etan:=mantra-jnanam n-=aitan=man-' 
tra-rakshanam = iti JParasarah 

(4) N=.eti Bisunah 

(5) N=eti Kautilyah 

(6) Mantribhis ■=■ tribhis = chatttrbhir=:va 
saha mantrayeta 

and so on. 
These are the Sutras, and whatever is pub- 
lished in the book along with each Sutra so as 
to form a paragraph is the Bhashya. There is 
yet another element of this work which requires 
to be considered — I mean the verses which are 
as a rule given at the end of each chapter. 
Who can be the author of these verses ? "Were 



100 LECTURE III. 

they all composed by Kautilya himself ? Let us 
try to answer this question. There can be no 
doubt that some at least were composed by him. 
Certainly the first two of the verses occurring 
on p. 17 of the published text must belong to 
him. The first gives the opinion of the previous 
Acharyas that the king shall employ his minis- 
ters in offices corresponding to their ascertained 
purity. The second cites the view of Kautilya 
that the king shall in no wise test their purity 
on himself or his queen. The phrase here used 
is etat Kautilya-darsanam. This indicates that 
these two verses at any rate come from 
the pen of Kautilya. And we can suppose 
that there were perhaps some others which 
also were composed by him. It is not how- 
ever, possible to concede more and assert 
that he was the author of all the verses met 
with in his work. This is strongly negatived by 
the fact that on pp. '565-6 occur two stanzas^ 
with the prefatory remark : ap = lha slokau 
bhavatali. This is an unmistakable indication 
that these verses at any rate were not of 
Kautilya, but were quoted by him from some 
work. Again, we have at least two instances of 
verses prefaced by one or more words in prose 
either of which is insufficient by itself but which 

1 The second of these stanzas occurs also in the Pratijnd- 
Taugandharayana (TSS.Bd., 62), and the first in the Pardsara-dharma' 
tamhitd, (BSS. Ed. I. ii. 272). 



ADMINIS LHATIVE HISTORY. 101 

together make the sense whole and complete. 
Thus on p. 121 we have the following : 

Stirakamedak-arishta-madhii-phcd-amlamla- 
sldhunam cha — 

Ahnas=-cha vikrayam vyaflm jhdtvci 

mana-hiranyayoh 
tatha vaidharanam huryad-=-ucliitam 
ch^^anuvartayet 
Here the verse by itself does not bring out 
the full sense, w^hich is possible only when it is 
interpreted in conjunction with the preceding 
prose line. Similar is the case on p. 29 where 
we have the following : 

Kurnatas=.cha — 
JS^=asya giihyam pare vidyus^cJiMdram 

vidyat parasya cha 
gJihet kurma iv = dngdni yat sydd=vivri- 
ta77i=:dtmanah 
Here the verse is preceded by two words 
in prose which together make clear the sense 
of the author. Now this practice of combining 
a verse with a prose passage to express an idea 
is often met with in Sanskrit dramas where 
it is indispensable for dramatic effect, but is 
conspicuous by its absence in any work dealing 
with a Sdstra when the whole of it is a pro- 
duction of one author. In a work setting forth 
the subject of a Sdstra no dramatic effect is 
ever intended, and when therefore we meet with 
such a combination of prose and verse, the only 



102 LECTURE III. 

reasonable conclusion is that the author is 
citing that verse from some other source and 
that in order to fully bring out its sense he has 
to preface it with a remark of his in prose. The 
two verses given above must, therefore, be 
supposed as not belonging to Kautilya but 
rather quoted by him from, a previous work on 
Arthas'astra. There is yet another line of argu- 
ment which compels us to adopt the same conclu- 
sion. The second of the verses just quoted from 
Kautilya occurs also in the Santi-Parvan. I 
am aware one is apt to suspect that the Santi- 
Parvan is indebted to Kautilya for this verse. 
But this is not possible, because I have just 
shown that it cannot belong to Kautilya as 
it is preceded by a prose preface. But there are 
other considerations also which leave no scep- 
ticism on this point. The verse in question, 
viz. that beginning with n=asya guhyam pare 
vidyuh occurs not only in the Santi but also in 
the Adi-Parvan. But here it is preceded by two 
verses which run thus : 

Nityam^-udyata-dandah syan=mtyam 
vivrita-paurushah 

acJicJihidras=chJiidra-darsi syat paresham 
vivar-anugalh 

Nityam = udyata-dandad = hi bhrisam = 
udv ija te jana h 

tasmat sarvani kdryani danden=aiva vi' 
dharayet 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 103 

Now, all these three verses, it is worthy of 
note, occur in Chapter VII of the Manu-smriti. 
The question, therefore, arises : who borrowed 
from whom ? Fortunately for us this question 
has been threshed out by no less an illustrious 
scholar than Prof. Biihler^ The above are not 
the only verses that are common to the Maha- 
bharata and the Manu-smriti. There are many 
others which have been pointed out by him in 
the introduction to his translation ot the Manu- 
smriti, and on a careful consideration of the 
question he has expressed the view that the 
editor of this metrical Smriti has not drawn 
upon the Mahabharata or vice versa but that the 
authors of both works have utilised the mate- 
rials that already existed. It is thus plain that 
the verse n^^asya guhyam pare vldytih etc. was 
not composed by Kautilya but was utilised by 
him from some work which was in existence 
long before he wrote or the Santi-Parvan or the 
Manu-smriti was compiled^ 

It will be perceived that all the verses except 
a few ones that occur in Kautilya's Arthas'astra 

1 SBE., XXV., Intro, xc. 

* Oae mora verse from Kautilya is v\'ortli considering in this 
connection. It occurs on p. 217, and begins with samvatsarena patati. 
The same verse is met with in Manu, XI. 180, Vasishtha, I. 22 and 
Baudhayana, II. i. 35. As there were some subjects common to the 
ArthasSstra and the Dharmasastra, it is very difficult to say whether 
Kautilya borrowed the verse from some work on the Dharmasastra, 
such as Manu, Vasishtha or Baudhayana or from some work on the 
ArthasSstra. Of course, the name Dhar mas antra was known to 
Kautilya (p. 10). 



104 LECTUK.E lEI. 

have been quoted by him from previous authors. 
When we, therefore, find any verses cited along 
with and in confirmation of the doctrines set 
forth by him of his predecessors, the natural 
conclusion is that the verses in question were 
quoted from the works of the latter. Such 
verses do we find e.g. on pages 13, 27 and 253 
of the printed edition. This shows that the 
works of Bharadvaja, Vis'alaksha and Parasara 
at least were in metrical form. In the case of 
Bharadvaja the matter has been placed beyond 
all doubt, because Kautilya actually cites part of 
a verse and ends the quotation with the remark 
iti Bharadvajah. I am, of course, referring 
here to Indrasya hi sa ]}'^^cmamati yo bally aso 
namati iti Bharadvajah on p. 380. This quota- 
tion, I need scarcely say, forms the second half 
of an Arya verse, and is exceedingly interesting 
inasmuch as it shows that in the earlier works 
on Arthasastra, not only the Anushtubh but also 
the Arya metre was employed. We have already 
seen on the authority of the Mahabharata that 
the works on polity attributed to Manu, Brihas- 
pati and Us'anas were in verse, and we now see 
on the authority of Kautilya that the same 
was the case with the works of Bharadvaja, 
Yisalaksha and Parasara. 

Here the question may be asked : how is it 
possible to regard the works on Arthasastra 
anterior to Kautilya as being metrical in form 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 105 

when the work of the latter, as we have seen, 
belongs to the Sutra class of composition? Does 
it not conflict with the established opinion of the 
Sanskritists that a Stitra work is prior to a work 
in which the Anushtubh metre is uniformly 
employed ? I admit that this opinion is at 
present highly countenanced by scholars, but I 
dispute its correctness. It was Max Miiller^ 
who first gave utterance to this view, which has 
now been followed rather slavishly by Sanskritists 
in spite of the strong protest raised against it by 
Goldstiickerl The latter scholar clearly tells 
us that it is one thing to lay down a criterion by 
which a class of works such e.g. as the Sutras 
might become recognisable, and it is another 
thing to make such a criterion a basis for 
computing periods of literature and that two 
classes of writings can flourish in one and the same 
period ; and, as a matter of fact, he has clearly 
proved that the Anushtubh or metrical form of 
composition was existing side by side with the 
Stitra in that very period to which the latter 
style of literature has been assigned. Which 
class of composition began earlier — the Stitra or 
the metrical — is a question which need not 
trouble us here. My contention is that from the 
7th century B. C. onwards to the time of 
Kautilya both the forms of composition flourished 

1 HASL., 68 &ff. 
- Fanini, 78 & ff. 

14 



106 LECTURE III. 

side by side as has been well shown by Gold- 
stiicker, and there can, therefore, be nothing 
strange in the Arthas'astra works of the pre- 
Kautilyan period being metrical in form although 
they pertain to the period to which the Sutra 
class of literature is generally ascribed and 
although the work of Kautilya himself is an 
example of this class. 

Many of the chapters of the Santi-Parvan 

narrate incidents in the form of dialogues which 

are designated 'puratana itihasa. Most of these 

itihasas relate to matters connected with Dharma, 

Purana and so forth. But at least two relate to 

the Arthasastra. One of these is set forth in 

Chapter 68, where we are introduced to a 

discourse between Brihaspati and Vasumanas, 

king of Kosala. Vasumanas pays his homage to 

the great sage, and enquires about the governance 

of a kingdom, and Brihaspati replies by dwelling 

on the paramount necessity of having a king at 

the head of the State. In the course of his 

discourse Brihaspati likens a king to the gods 

Agni, Aditya, Mrityu, Yaisravana and Yama, 

and a verse is given, viz. Na hi jatv=^avamantavyo 

manushya ifi bhumipah \ mahatl deimta hy=^esha 

nara-rupena tishthati \\ 40 n which we find also 

• in Manu (VII, 8). Then in Chapter 140 of the 

same Parvan we are introduced to another 

dialogue, this time between the sage Bharadvaja 

and ^atrunjaya, king of Sauvira. King ^atrunjaya 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 107 

puts Bharadvaja a question contained in the 
verse : Alahdhasya katham lipsa lahdham kena 
vivardhate \ vardhitam palyate kena palitam 
pranayet katham \\ 5 || which forms the very 
essence of the Science of Polity according to 
Kautilya, as is clear from his words : (Dandanitih) 
alahdlia-labh-artha lahdha-parirakshanl rakshita- 
vivardhanl vriddhasya tlrtheshu pratipadanl 
cha} Bharadvaja's reply commences with the 
two verses, one beginning with Nityam=.uddyata- 
dandali syat and theother with Nityam = uddyata- 
dandasya followed soon by the third verse whose 
second half is guhet kurma iv=angani etc., 
exactly the three verses quoted on pages 1 1-2 
above as being common to the Adi-Parvan and 
the Manu-smriti, Prom these data it is not 
unreasonable, I hope, to draw the following 
inferences : (1) Just as in the case of every 
Purana we are informed of the occasion on which 
and the people to whom and the person by whom 
it was recited, it seems that at the outset of each 
Arthasastra were specified the occasion which led 
to its exposition and the sage by, whom and the 
person or persons for whose edification it was 
discoursed.'^ This explains why Kautilya places 
Arthasastra, like Purana and Dharmasastra, 



1 p. 9. 

2 The Ausanasa Arthasastra similarly seems to have been 
discourse of the sage Usanas to Pralhada {Santi-P., 139. 69). 



108 LECTURE III. 

under Itihasa\ (2) It appears that the works 
named after Brihaspati and Bharadvaja at 
any rate were not composed by them but 
rather embodied the doctrines expounded by them 
orally to certain kings and on certain occasions, 
(i) The verse 40, cited from Chapter 68 of the 
^anti-Parvan, which we iind is practically 
identical with Manu, VII. 8, (p. 106), must, there- 
fore, be supposed to have originally belonged to 
the work setting forth the system of Brihaspati. 
For the same reason Bharadvaja must be 
supposed to be the author of the three verses 
quoted from Chapter 140 of the same Parvan 
and shown to be identical with Manu, VII. 
102-3 and 105^ (p. 107). 

When Kautilya wrote, the study of the 
Arthasastra was falling into desuetude. This, 
I think, is clear from one of the verses occurring 
at the end of his book, viz : 



1 p. 10. 

" Like Arthasastra Kanfcilya (p. 10) places Dharmasastra also 
under Itihasa. I suspect that Dharmasastra, too, like Arthasastx'a, 
was originally of metrical composition before it assumed the Siitra 
form. This alone can explain, I think, why vei'ses have been intro- 
duced into the DharmasStras, just as they are in Kaufcillya. As in the 
latter case we know they were borrowed from previous works on 
Arthasastra, those in the Dharmasiitras must similarly have been 
borrowed from previous works of that science which must therefore 
be supposed to have been metrical in form. And I suspect that the 
original Mannsmriti, and, not the present recast one, was prior oven 
to the Dharmasiitras, especially as verses from the latter have been 
traced to the former ; vide also p. 113, n. 2 below. I hope I may find 
tiine once to work out this theory fully. 



ADMINISTHATIVE HISTORY. 109 

Yena sclstram cha sastram cJia 

Nanda-rdja-gata cha bhuh 
amar shell = oddhritdny = dsu 

tenet sd&tram=:idam kritam. 
This verse is evidently crediting Kautilya 
with having rescued Sastra, which can here 
mean Arthasastra only\ It thus seems that 
the old works on the Arthasastra were heing 
forgotten in his time. And to rescue this Science 
from oblivion Kautilya appears to have made 
a vigorous attempt at getting hold of the old 
works, most of which he did succeed in obtaining 
and which he brought into requisition in com- 
posing his treatise. And we know what a 
stupendous mass of literature it was. There 
were, to begin with, at least four Schools connec- 
ted with this Science. A School means 
a traditional handing down of a set of 
doctrines and presupposes a series of dchdryas or 
teachers, who from time to time carried on the 
work of exegetics and systematisation. Jiesides, 
we find that Kautilya mentions not only four 
Schools but also thirteen individual authors 
who were in no way connected with any School. 
Again, we have already seen that of the teachers 
of our Science referred to in the Santi-Parvan 
all except one have been mentioned by Kautilya. 
This exception was Gauras'iras, whose work 

1 The word uddhrita is taken in the sense of 'reformed' by 
Prof. Jacobi (loc. cifc 837), which is scarcely admissible, I am afraid. 
* Eautiltya, pp. 7 & 10. 



110 LECTURE III. 

perhaps seems to have been lost in his time. It is 
quite possible that there may have been works of 
some more teachers which were similarly for- 
gotten, especially as we have seen that in Kauti- 
lya's time the Science of Polity was being well- 
nigh extinct. The latest of these works again must 
for the same reason be supposed to have been 
written at least three-quarters of a century ante- 
rior to his time. All things considered, it is 
impossible to bring down the beginning of Indian 
thought in the sphere of Arthas'astra to any 
period later than 650 B.C. We have seen that 
Chapter 59 of the Santi-Parvan attributes the 
origin of this Science to the god Brahma and of 
the different treatises on it to the different 
gods and demi-gods. This means that in the 
4ith century B.C. Arthasastra was looked upon 
as having come from such a hoary antiquity 
that it was believed to have emanated from the 
divine, and not from the human, mind. This 
agrees with the fact that in Kautilya's time 
Arthasastra was comprised in Itihasa, which 
was then looked upon as a Veda and of the same 
dignity as the Atharva-Yeda.^ 

We thus see that much of the matter supplied 
by Kautilya's work pertains to the period selected 
by us, and can be safely used to show how much 
the Indians knew of this science in that period. 
To the same period seem to belong the chapters 

^ Kautiliya, 7. 



ADMINISTRATIYE HISTORY. Ill 

from the Mahabharata, especially from the 
Santi-Parvan, which deal with rajadhorm-anu~ 
sasana; and it is not at all improbable that this 
section represents in the main the work of the pre- 
Kautilyan political philosopher Kaunapadanta 
as this is but another name for Bhishma. The 
account of polity which they contain seems to 
have been drawn principally from the systems 
of Brihaspati, Usanas and Manu. Again, when 
those chapters were written, only seven authors 
of this Science were known. In Kautilya's time 
they were at least twelve^ Again, the name 

^It has been sfcafced above that the order in which Kautilja 
mentions the first seven of the individual authors of the Arthasastra 
is uniform. This no doubt raises the presumption that he would have 
us believe that they lived in that chronological sequence, and apparent- 
ly receives confirmation from the fact that thrice (on pp. 13-4, 27-8 
& 32-3) Kautilya mentions them in such a way as to show that the 
dootriaes of one are refuted by his immediate successor in that order 
of specification. There are, on the other hand, some weighty consi- 
derations which run counter to this theory. On jj. 320 & ff., Kautilya 
says that of the calamities pertaining to the seven Prakritis or com- 
ponents of Sovereignty, viz. (1) svanil, (2) amatya, (3) janapada, 
(4) durga, (5) hosa, (6) danda and (7) mitra, the first is more serious 
than its immediate second, according to the Acharyas or the recog- 
nised authorities on the Arthasastra. This is not, however, the view of 
Bharadvaja, Visalaksha, Parasara, Pisuna, Kaunapadanta and Vatavya- 
dhi, who are mentioned in this specific order by Kautilya 
Of (1) and (2), (2) is more serious than (1) with Bharadvaja; 
of (2) and (3), (3) is more serious than (2) with Visalaksha, and so on 
and so on. It will be seen that the order in which the Seven Prakritis 
are enumerated is fixed by the Acharyas who are different from 
Bharadvaja, Visalaksha and so forth. And what I cannot therefore 
under stand is how the six consecutive pairs (l)-(2), (2)-(3) and so forth 
of this series come to be taken up respectively by the six consecutive 
authors of Kautilya's enumeration. Are we to suppose that throixgh 



112 LECTURE III. 

Gaurasiras, which is mentioned in the Santi- 
Parvan, is not known to Kautilya showing probab- 
ly that his work was forgotten when the prime- 
minister of Chandragupta wrote. Moreover, as the 
Mahabharata does not know many of the authors 
adverted to by Kautilya, it is no wonder that it 
mentions none of the later authors such as Mahar- 
shis,^Maya and Puloma who came into prominence 
after him and are referred to by Kamandaka^ 

some inexorable destiny Bharadvaja, because he came first, had to 
take up for the discussion of relative importance the first pair only 
and thsn there was a lull till Visalaksha appeared, and just because 
he was the second, he too had to take up the second and the second pair 
only, and so on and so on ? Again, on p. 325 and ff. the same un- 
alterable necessity seems to have assigned the question of relative 
heinousness between the Eopajah and Kamajah doshah to Bharadvaja 
because he came first. Then it appears there was a trace for some 
time to further discussion till Visalaksha the second arose. Then it. 
wa« felt necessary to deduce two pairs out of the three Kopajah doshah, 
assign the first of these to Visalaksha, and reserve the second till the 
advent of his successor, Parasara, and fio on and so on. Surely histo- 
rical development of the Arthasaatra could not have taken place accord- 
ing to this exact unalterable programme. 

1 By Maharshis we perhaps have to understand here the eight sages 
to whom the original work on polity has been attributed in Chapter 
335 of the Santi-Parvan. The name Maya suggests the Asura Maya, 
the Architect, referred to in the Sabha-Parvan. 

- VIII. 20-1 & 23. I need scarcely say that this Kamandaka cannot be 
identified with the sage Kamandaka mentioned in the Santi-P., 123, 10 & 
ff . as this would bring the final redaction of the Mahabharata down to 
the 7th century A.D. — which is an impossibility. This chapter sets forth 
a dialocue between Kamandaka and Angarishtha, but, as a matter 
of fact, we do not hear of the latter at all in Kamandaka's Arthasastra. 
Secondly, in this chapter Kamandaka is discoursing on a religious 
subject which has hardly anything to do with the Arthasastra and 
absolutely nothing with the peculiar doctrines of Kamandaka, the 
political philosopher. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 113 

These considerations show that those portions 
of the Mahabharata, and especially of the 
Santi-Parvan, which treat of the Science of 
Polity, are on the whole indebted for their 
account to authors who lived prior to Kautilya. 
I have shown above which verses are quoted 
in the Mahabharata and from which of these 
authors. But there seem also to be verses 
in this epic which are paraphrases of the 
original of these authors. I shall give only 
one, but typical, instance here. I informed 
you a short time ago that Kautilya quoted the 
second half of an Arya metre from Bharadvaja, 
viz. Indrasya hi sa ijranamati yo ballyaso 
namati. Now in the Mahabharata, both in the 
Uddyoga and the Santi-Parvan, we find an 
Anushtubh which is an obvious renderins: of 
this half of the Arya verse of Bharadvaja, viz: 
^tay=-opamaya mra aamnameta bally ase 
Indraya sa pranamate namate yo hallyase^ . 
We can easily infer that the Mahabharata 
must contain many such metrical adaptations 
of verses from works on Arthasastra anterior 
to Kautilya^. 



1 Uddyoga-P.,2,Z2Q; Santi-P., 67.11. 

^ The same is the case with the Manusmriti, some slohas from 
which are reproduced in the Mahabharata verbatim and some freely 
rendered in verse. This does not therefore warrant the conclusio'h 
as has been drawn by some scholars that that part of the epic whicht 
agrees most closely in its citations with the code of Mann i» later 
than that portion which does not coincide. n my opinion, it rather'- 
points to the inference that the portion that cu cides -may be aiS-oId 
as that which does not. 

15 



114 LECTTJRE III. 

(b) Hindu G07iceptions of Monarchy . 

So much for the literature bearing upon 
Arthasastra. I will now turn to some subjects 
connected with Administration which have a 
greater and general interest for us all. Let us 
see first what were the various forms of govern- 
ment prevalent at this time. The principal of 
these, of course, were monarchy and Gana or 
Sangha Government. The former was a rule 
by one person^ and the latter by many. The 
royal dynasties of the Magadha, Kosala, Avanti 
and Vatsa countries, which I described in my 
last lecture, represent the monarchical form of 
government. In that lecture I drew your 
attention cilso to two tdbss — the Lichchhavis 
and the Mallas, which were brouscht under 
sabjection by Ajatasatra. Tiiey are in Bnddhist 
literature described as Ganas or Sahghas. In 
this lecture I shall confine myself to the first 
form of government only, viz. Monarchy, and 
shall treat of the other in my next. In regard 
to Monarchy many interesting details are 
supplied by Hinda works on administration, 
but here I shall take up only those which 
appear to be important to me. 

Now, why is a king required ? Where was 
the necessity of a king at the helm of State 
affairs ? Let us see what reply is given to this 
question by the Hindu science of polity. 
Chapter 67 of the Santi-Parvan contains 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 115 

the following typical verses bearing on the 
question. 

*' Eor these reasons men desirous of pros- 
perity should crown some person as their king. 
They, who live in countries where anarchy 
prevails cannot enjoy their wealth and wives 
(V. 12). 

" During times of anarchy, the sinful man 
derives great pleasure by plundering the wealth 
of other people. When, however, his (ill-got) 
wealth is snatched away by others, he wishes for 
a king (v. 13). 

" It is evident, therefore, that in times of 
anarchy the very wicked even cannot be 
happy. The wealth of one is snatched away by 
two. That of these two is snatched away by 
many acting together (v. 14). 

" He who is not a slave is made a slave. 
"Women, again, are forcibly abducted. For 
these reasons the gods created kings for 
protecting the people (v. 15) 

" If there were no king on earth for wield- 
ing the rod of chastisement, the strong would 
then have preyed on the weak after the manner 
of fishes in the water (v. 16) " 

These verses set forth the reasons why a 
king is indispensable. Their essence is, how- 
ever, concentrated in the last verse which 
tells us that if there were no king, the 
strong would devour the weak just as the 



110 LECTURE Hi. 

fishes do in water, and refers to what is popu- 
larly known as the Matsya-nyaya. This seems 
to have been a very favourite maxim with the 
Hindu writers on the political science and is 
constantly repeated when they have to explain 
the necessity of placing a king at the head of 
government. Thus the Manu-smriti gives the 
following verse : 

Yadi na pranayed=-raja dmidarh 

dandy esliv ^^atandritaU 
jale matsymi=iv=ahi'msyan 

durbalan balavattarah. 
Chapter YII. v. 20. 

Translation, 

" If the king did not un wearisomely exercise 
the chastising rod on those deserving to be 
chastised, the stronger would kill the weaker 
like fish in water." 

Kautilya also gives the same illustration not 
once but twice in his Arthasastra. Thus on p. 9 he 
says: Apranlto hi Mdtsya-nyayn7n=-udbJiavayati 
ballydfi = abalam hi grasafe dandadhar-abhdve. 
" Because, if the chastising rod is not exercised, 
it brings about the realisation of the proverb 
of the greater fish swallowing the smaller. In 
the absence of the wielder of the chastising rod, 
the strong devours the weak." Here the 
employment of the word danda and the phrase 
Matsya-nyaya and, above all, the use of the 



ADMINISTRATIYE HISTOHY. ll^ 

word apranlta, are all but conclusive in show- 
ing that M^hen Kautilya wrote that passage, 
he had in mind the verse quoted above which 
must therefore be supposed to have been 
incorporated into the Manu-smriti from some 
older text of the Arthasastra. Mdtsya-nydya 
is again alluded to by Kautilya on p. 22, but as 
I am citing the whole passage further on and 
very shortly, I refrain from doing so here and 
content myself with saying that Kautilya 
twice speaks of the Mdtsya-nydya when he has 
to describe the anarchy that prevails in 
default of a king. Curiously enough this 
MdUya-nydya has been alluded to even in the 
Ramayana when the condition is described of an 
ardjaka jaiiapada, i.e. a country without a 
king. Thus we have the verse : 

N-=drdjake janapade svakam bhavati 
kasyachit 

matsyd iva jand nityam bhakshayanti 

parasparam. 
Ayodhya-kancla, Chap. 67. v. 31. 

Translation. 

"In a country where there is no king, nobody 
possesses anything which is his own. Like 
the fish the people are always devouring one 
another." 

Other reasons have been set forth in the 
Ayodhya-kanda of the Ramayana from where 



118 LECTURE III. 

the above verse has been extracted, pointing 
to the paramount necessity of appointing a king. 
And it is very strange that most of them are 
precisely the same as those adduced in Chap. 68 
of the Santi-Farvan, showing that either one 
has borrowed from the other or, what is more 
probable, both of them drew upon some previous 
source. I fear it will be exceedingly irksome 
to you if I quote all these passages from both 
the works, and institute a comparison between 
them. Besides, such a thing is not at all necessary 
to my main purpose, which is simply to impress 
upon your mind the fact that the most favourite 
illustration given to describe the state of a 
country without a ruler is that of the fish 
preying upon one another. 'J^his idea seems to 
have been so thoroughly assimilated by the 
Hindus that we find it repeated everywhere. 
Even the Khalimpur copperplate charter of 
Dharmapala of the Pala dynasty, the contents of 
which most of you here in Bengal must be 
acquainted with, refers to the Matsya-nyaya 
while speaking of Dharmapala's father, Gopala. 
Thus we have : — 

Mdtsya-nyayam=apohitum prakritibhir= 

Lakshmyah haram graliitah 

^rl- Gopala iti JcsJiitUa-sirasam chudamanis = 
tat-sufali^ 



1 EI., IV. 248 & 251. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 119 

Let us now see what notions of kingship 
there were in our period, in other words, what 
theories were prevalent in regard to the 
origin of kingship. The first theory that I shall 
here allude to is that of the Social Contract. 
The theory in Europe was, we know, originated 
by Hobbes and further developed or rather 
altered by Locke and Rousseau. So much do 
we read and hear of this view while studying 
European History that we are apt to suppose 
that a mental restlessness in this sphere was 
confined to Europe only and never manifested 
itself in the political horizon of ancient India. 
A study of the Arthas'astra, however, will soon 
disillusion our mind./ The theory of Social 
Contract was certainly known to Kautilya, and 
is referred to by him with approval and as being 
handed down to his time from time previous. 
"People afflicted with anarchy", says he, "conse- 
quent upon the Matsya-nyaya, i.e. the practice 
of the bigger fish swallowing the smaller, first 
elected Manu, son of Yivasvat, to be their king. 
They allotted one sixth of their grains and one 
tenth of their merchandise as his share. Subsist- 
ing on this wage kings become capable of giving 
safety and security to their subjects and 
removing their sins. Hence hermits, too, provide 
the king with one sixth of the grains gleaned by 
them, saying to themselves 'it is a tax payable 
to him who protects us'." The same story is. 



120 LECTURE III. 

repeated but at greater length in chapter 67 of 
the Santi-Parvan.^ I need not tell you that 
in this as in other chapters on Hajadharma 
Bhishma is issuing instructions to Yudhishthira. 
And in Chapter 67 Ehlshma says that formerly 
men, being without a king, met with destruction, 
devouring one another like fish in water. They 
then assembled together, prepared a code of 
laws and proceeded to Brahma, saying : "With- 
out a king, O divine lord, we are going to des- 
truction. Appoint some one as our king ! All 
of us shall worship him and he shall protect us !" 
Thus solicited, Brahma asked Manu, but Manu 
would not assent to the proposal. "I fear," said 
he, "all sinful acts. To govern a kingdom is 
exceedingly difficult, especially among men who 
are always false and deceitful in their be- 
haviour." The inhabitants of the Earth then 
said to him : "Don't fear ! The sins that men 
commit will touch those only that commit them. 
Por the increase of thy treasury, we will give thee 
a fiftieth part of our animals and precious metals 
and a tenth part of our grains."^ Thus addressed, 
Manu agreed, and he made his round through 
the world, checking wickedness everywhere and 
setting all men to their respective duties. 

^ It is worthy of note that this story occurs in all the recensions 
of the Mahabharata. It must, therefore, be of a very early origin. 

" These differ from the dues which men promised to pay to Manu 
according to the version of Kautilya. This shows that the Santi- 
Parvan could not have boi'rowed the tradition from Kautilya. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 1^1 

A similar conception of the origin of 
monarchy is traceable in Buddhist literature 
also. The Agganna-suttanta of the Digha-Nikaya^ 
of the Southern Buddhists describes at great 
length the evolution of man and society and 
tells us how mankind was righteous to begin 
with, how gradually and in diverse ways 
sinfuless crept into human society, and how 
theft, lying, reviling and assaulting becamei 
rife. Thereupon men assembled together, and 
after taking counsel, selected the most handsome 
gracious and powerful individual from amongst 
them, addressing him thus : " Come here, O 
being ! Do punish, revile and exile those who 
well deserve to be punished, reviled and exiled. 
We will give you a portion of our rice." He 
undertook the performance of this duty and 
received three different appellations in conse- 
quence. Because he was selected by all men 
( mahajana-saihmata ), he was called Maha- 
sammata. Because he was the lord of all fields 
{Mettcmam patlti), he was called Kshatriya, 
And because he delighted others through righte- 
ousness (dhammetia pare ranJetUf/ he was called 
B^ajan. Practically the same story is repeated in 



1 III. 92 and ff. This may also be compared to the beginning of 
the Umka-Jataka {Jat. II. 352.) 

2 This agrees with the etymology of the word given in the Santi-P., 
59-125. 

16 



122 LECl'URE III. 

the Mahavastu\ a canonical work of the North 
Buddhists, and this conception of kingship 
seems to have so deeply permeated the 
Buddhist community that the story of Maha- 
sammata is narrated also in the post-canonical 
literature and of such widely separated countries 
as Ceylon, Burma and Tibet. ^ 

Prom the above accounts it will be seen 
that sovereignty originated in a social contract. 
Human beings, we learn, were fighting with 
one another, by each person taking for himself 
all that he could. The state of nature was there- 
fore a state of war, which came to an end 
only when men agreed to give their liberty into 
the hands of a sovereign. I need not tell you 
that this view of the origin of society bears a 
remarkably close correspondence with that 
propounded by Hobbes. But Hobbes expounded 
this notion of Agreement by saying that 
absolute power was thereby irrevocably trans- 
ferred to the ruler. Such was not, however, the 
case with the Social Contract theory advocated 
by the Hindu Arthas'astra. According to the 
latter the king was still the servant of the 
people. The sixth part of the grains and the 
tenth part of the merchandise that was his due 



^ (Senart's Edition), I, 347-8. 

= Spence Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, 128; Burmese Dawathat 
Richardson's Ed.) 7 ; Eockhill's Life of the Buddha, 1-9. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 123 

was but the wage that he received for his 
service to the people. This is the view not only 
of Kautilya and the Santi-Parvan but also of the 
authorities on the Dharmas'astra. Baudhayana 
e. g. who flourished in the fifth century B. C. 
says, shad-bliclga-bhrito raja rahsliet prajam, 
*'Let the king protect (his) subjects, receiving 
as his pay a sixth part (of their grains)."^ 
In another place in the Santi-Parvan^ such 
sources of a king's revenue as the sixth part of 
the yield of the soil, fines and imposts to which 
he is entitled according to the scriptures, have 
been called his vetana, his wage, for the protec- 
tion he vouchsafes to his subjects. Nay, the 
king is exhorted in unmistakable language that 
if he is unable to restore to any subject of his 
the wealth that has been stolen away by thieves 
he should compensate him from his own treasury 
or with wealth obtained from his dependents.^ 
This was also laid down by Kautilya. "What- 
ever of the property of the citizens", 
says he, "robbed by thieves the king cannot 
recover, shall be made good from his own 
pocket".* This was also the view of the 
Dharma-sastrakaras. Gautama'' e.g. says that 
"having recovered property stolen by thieves, 

^ I. 10.1. 
2 71.10. 
2 75.10. 
* p. 190. 

X. 46-7 ; cf . also Vishnu, III, 66—1. 



124i LECTURE III. 

the king shall return it to the owner, or (if the 
stolen property is not recovered) he shall pay 
(its value) out of his treasury." It will thus be 
seen that whatever the king received by way 
of taxation prescribed by scriptures was considered 
as his wage for the service rendered by him to 
the people and that he was compelled to make 
good from his pocket any loss that his subjects 
suffered from their stolen property not being 
recovered. The king's power can thus hardly 
be supposed to be absolute. And it is this 
feature that distinguishes the Hindu theory of 
Social Contract from that propounded by Hobbes, 
and marks its superiority over the latter. The 
king, according to the Hindu notion, thus never 
wielded any unqualified power, but was looked 
upon as merely a public servant though of the 
highest order. 

So much in regard to the theory of the 
Social Covenant so far as it was known to the 
early authors of the Arthasastra. The other 
theory that we now consider is that which 
ascribes divine origin to kingship. This theory 
has been set forth in Chapter 59 of the 
^anti-Parvan. Yudhishthira begins by asking 
Bhishma a most sensible question. "Whence 
arose the word raj an J' interrogates Yudhishthira 
"which is used on earth ? Possessed of hands, 
arms and neck like others, having an un- 
derstanding and senses like those of others. 



ADMINISTKATIVE HISTORY. 125 

subject like others to the same kinds of joy 

and grief, in fact, similar to others in respect 

of all the attributes of humanity, for what 
reason does one man, iris, the king, govern 
the rest of the world ? Why do all men seek 
to obtain his favour ?" This was the question 
asked by Yudhisthira. To this Bhishma gives 
the following reply. In the Krita age there 
was no sovereignty, no king. All men used to 
protect one another righteously. Soon after 
they were assailed by moha or infatuation. 
And in its train followed loblia, greed, wrath 
and rdga or unrestrained sexual indulgence. 
Confusion thus set in, and the Yedas (Brahman) 
and righteousness (Dharma) were lost. The 
gods were overcome with fear, and repaired to 
the god Brahma. "O Lord of the three Worlds," 
said they, "we are about to descend to the level 
of human beings ! Men used to pour upwards 
while we used to pour downwards. In conse- 
quence, however, of the cessation of all pious 
rites among men, great distress will be our lot." 
Thus addressed the god composed the treatise 
consisting of a hundred thousand chapters and 
treating of dharma, art ha, kama and moksha 
to which I have already referred. The gods 
then approached Vishnu, the lord of creation 
(prajdpati), and said unto him — 'Indicate, O god, 
that one among mortals who deserves to have 
superiority over the rest.' The god Narayana 



126 LECTURE III. 

created, by a fiat of his will, a son born of his 
tejas or lustre, named Virajas. It was, however, 
the seventh descendant from Vishnu, who was 
crowned king and ruled according to the 
danda-nlti composed by the god Brahma. His 
name was Prithu Vainya, and his coronation 
was celebrated not only by Brahmans and 
E/ishis but also deities with Indra, Regents of 
the world, and, above all, Yishnu himself. The 
eternal Vishnu confirmed Prithu's power, 
telling him : "No one, O King, shall transcend 
thee." The divine Vishnu entered the personality 
of that monarch, and for this reason, the entire 
universe offered divine worship to Prithu. 
Since that t'me there has been no difference 
between a deva and a naradeva : between a god 
and a human god, i.e. between a god and a king. 
And we are further told that a person, upon the 
exhaustion of his merit, comes down from 
heaven to earth and takes birth as a kinsj: 
conversant with Danda-nlti and is really portion 
of Vishnu on earth. He is thus established by 
the gods, and no one can, therefore, transcend 
him. It is for this reason that the multitude 
obey his words of command, though he belongs 
to the same world and is possessed of similar 
limbs. 

It will be seen that according to this theory 
the pre-social condition was one of peace and 
freedom. When moha or infatuation took 



ADMINISrRATIVE HISTORY. 127 

possession of the human beings, confusion 

arose, and the gods, being alarmed, went to 

Prajapati Vishnu who directed his son Virajas to 

rule over men. It was, however, Prithu Vainya 

seventh descendant from Vishnu, who was 

crowned king not only by gods but also by 

Vishnu. Not only Prithu but also kings since 

that time are looked upon as part of Vishnu and 

are therefore called Nara-devas, i.e. gods in 

human form. The rudiments of this notion of 

kingship are traceable even in the Satapatha- 

Brahmana. Let me here quote a passage from 

this work, bearing on the point. "And as to 

why a Rajanya shoots, he, the Rajanya, is most 

manifestly of Prajapati : hence, while being 

one, he rules over many."^ The last sentence 

is very signillcant. This precisely forms the 

basis of the question which Yudhishthira asks 

Bhishma at the beginning of Chapter 59 whose 

summary I have just given. The question is : 

the king is but one of the many human beings 

and how is it that he rules over them ? 

Bhishma's reply is that the king is a nara-deva 

being part of Prajapati Vishnu. This is just 

what the Satapatha-Brahmana says. It is true 

that this Brahmana represents a king to be 

part of Prajapati only and makes no mention 

of Vishnu, but then we must remember that the 

' V. 1.5.14. 



1^8 LECTURE Hi. 

same Brahmana^ mentions Prajapati as an 
epithet of the god Savitri who and Vishnu 
represent one and the same i3un deity. This 
view, therefore, leads us to suppose that the 
king was originally regarded as a descendant of 
the sun ; and this explains, I think, the etymo- 
logical meaning of the word cliakravartin used in 
the case of universal monarchs. The Brahmani- 
cal, Buddhist and Jaina works are unanimous 
in saying that preceded by the miraculous chakra 
a supreme ruler sets out on his expedition of 
conquest and subjects all petty princes.^ What 
can this oliakra be ? This question has very 
much exercised scholars and antiquarians. But 
I cannot help thinking that this chakra must be 
the chakra of Vishnu, who according to old 
Hindu notion, abides in him in part and whose 
discus alone can legitimately be supposed as 
affording safety to him against all his enemies. 
This no doubt reminds us of the Pharaohs of 
of Egypt who were styled Si-re or sons of the 
Sun-god and who in sculptures are represented 
as being protected by the rays emanating from 
the orb of the sun. It is quite possible that in 
the Brahmana period the chakra of Vishnu which 
granted protection and safety to the kings, was 
really the orb of the sun darting its rays to them. 

1 XII. 3.5.1, 

^ See 'Encyclo'pnediab of Religion and Mhics under the word 
Ghakravartin. 



ADMINISTRA.TIVE HISTORY. 129 

The question is here sure to be asked : Were 
there any checks to the arbitrariness of a king ? 
Those who hekl the Social Contract theory would 
be the last persons to condone the misuse of 
authority by a king. Even such a retired and 
self-contained Buddhist monk as Aryadeva can 
scarcely keep his mind unperturbed when he 
sees the haughtiness of a ruler caused by his 
ruling power and cannot help blurting out : 
Gana-dasasya te darpah shad-bJiagena hhrifasya 
hah :^ " What superciliousness is thine, (O 
king !), who art a (mere) servant of the body 
politic and who receivest the sixth part (of the 
produce) as thine wages?" Even those who 
held the theory of the divine origin of kingship 
could not have defended or tolerated the mis- 
rule and oppression of any king. A theory 
similar to this, is the theory of the Divine Eight 
of Kings which was started and developed in 
Europe by the Christian Apostles and Eathers. 
We know to what absurd and pernicious extent 
it was carried in Europe. One of the Eathers, 
Irenoeus e.g., holds that the ruler is not only the 
minister of God's remedy for sin but the instru- 
ment of his punishment.^ Much the same view 
was propounded by Eathers St. Ambrosiaster and 
St. Augustine. It was therefore no wonder at 
all if in his speech to Parliament in 1659 

1 V. 77. 

2 A History of Mediseval Political Theory in the West, Vol, I. by 
A. J. Carlyle, p. 148 and ff. 

17 



180 LECTURE III. 

James II of England declared: "Kings are 
justly called gods ; for they exercise a manner of 
resemblance of Divine power on earth. Por if 
you will consider the attributes of God, you shall 
see how they agree in the person of a king. God 
hath power to create or destroy, make or unmake 
at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to 
judge all and to be accountable to none. And 
the like power have kings. They make and 
unmake their subjects ; they have power of 
raising up and casting down ; of life and death ; 
judges over all their subjects and in all cases, 
yet accountable to none but God. They have 
power to exalt low things and abase high things 
and to make of their subjects like men at chess." 
Surely enormity cannot farther go. fortunately 
for India though the divine origin of kings was 
maintained by some people, it was never pushed 
to this absurd extreme or, for the matter of that, 
to any absurd extent. On the contrary, even 
such a late work as the SaTcra-nlti ^ says : " The 
king, who is virtuous, is a part of the gods. He 
who is otherwise is a part of the demons." It 
will be seen therefore that a king is a nar t-deva 
only so long as he is virtuous and that he ceases 
to be so the moment he goes to the bad. The 
theory of the divine origin of kings was thus 
maintained and kept within sober bounds. The 
Arthas'astrakaras of India, therefore, nowhere 

^ I. 70. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORr. 131 

show even the least inclination to defend any 
misconduct and repression on the part of a 
king. On the contrary, they are never wearied 
of impressing on his mind the paramount 
necessity of controlling passions, such as kama, 
krodha, lobha and so forth which are called the 
Sati'u-shad-varga or the six enemies of the 
king.^ Instances are cited of the rulers who have 
brought destruction upon themselves, their 
families and their kingdoms by falling a prey to 
one or another of these passions. Those who 
have read Kautilya's Arthasastra need not be 
told what I mean.'^ But perhaps it may here 
be said that the instances Kautilya has adduced 
are all from the Maliabharata and the Puranas 
and have no bearing on real political life. Is 
there anything in his book in this connection 
which relates to actual practice or experience ? 
I may therefore draw your attention to another 
part of his book where he starts the question : 
which enemy should be marched against, an 
enemy strong but of wicked character or an 
enemy weak but of righteous character ? And 
he answers it by saying that the former should 
by all means be attacked, for though he is strong, 
his subjects will not help him but on the contrary 
will either put hini down or go over to the other 

^ Kautilixja, pp. 11-2. 
^ InsLaaces of people having killed their kings are also found 
\n the Buddhist Jatakas, e.g., Jat. nos. 73 and 433. 



182 LECTURE III. 

side. And in support of his position Kautilyi 
cites many verses from previous authors, one of 
which distinctly tells us that " when a people 
are impoverished, they become greedy ; when 
they are greedy, they become disaffected ; when 
they are disaffected, they voluntarily go to the 
side of the enemy or destroy their own master."^ 
We cannot, therefore, help inferring that in India 
in the old period at any rate if the subjects were 
maltreated by a king, they took revenge by join- 
ing the enemy's side if he ever invaded, otherwise 
by actually putting their king to death. Surely 
historical instances of wicked and oppressive 
rulers being deserted or even killed by their 
subjects must have remained within the living 
memory of Kautilya and his predecessors, 
otherwise these verses would not have been 
composed or quoted. And we hear an echo 
of it even from the Mahabharata where in 
at least one place we are told that "the sub- 
jects should arm themselves for slaying that 
king who does not protect them, who simply 

plunders their wealth, and who is regarded 

as the most sinful of kings. That king who 
tells his people that he is their protector but 
who does not or is unable to protect them, 
should be slain by his combined subjects like 
a dog that is effected by the rabies and has 

^ Kautillya, p. 275 ; also verse beginning with tatas = sa dushta- 
ftraTcritih on p, 257, 



ADMrN"LSTR,A.'lI\^E HISIOIIY. 133 

become mad\" Evidently, therefore, there 
must have been actual instances of pernicious 
and sinful rulers being put to death by their 
subjects. And all these instances must certainly 
have acted as a powerful deterrent to a king 
from giving a loose rein to his passions. 

But it may be argued that the above consi- 
derations at best show that the misrule of an 
autocrat when it went up to an excess was put 
down by the people of ancient India, but that 
they do not necessarily show that the adminis- 
tration of the country was so framed that it 
did not allow a king to become despotic and 
uncontrolled. Can we say that the king's power 
was not arbitrary but was restrained by organi- 
sations of an opposite character ? Now, it is 
true that in the period we have selected the 
regal power had considerably augmented as com- 
pared to that of the previous periods, but I 
confess that it could not have become arbitrary. 
India was then a home of self-governing com- 
munities as it continues to be to this day though 
now to a very limited extent. India was then 
studded with village, town and provincial 
corporations which exercised a kind of auto- 
nomy in their own spheres and managed their 
affairs independently or semi-independently of 



1 Anusasana-P., 61.32-3 ; also Santi-P., 92.9, which attributes a 
similar doctrine to the sage VainadevE!,. 



134 LECTURE III. 

the king/ A similar organisation of this period 
was the trade and craft guilds which then 
flourished in numbers and were so powerful as 
to keep their own armies and sometimes even 
lend them to the kinsf. The kino; was thus in 
those days surrounded by these tiny but 
numerous self-governing bodies, with their 
particularistic jurisdictions, which circumscribed 
his power. Certainly he could not afford to 
ignore their existence and is therefore exhorted 
by all Hindu epics and law- givers to respect 
their codes of laws and regulations and consult 
them. The administration of our period must, 
therefore, have been a system of mutual checks, 
and could not have left much scope for the 
development of the king's arbitrariness. Nay, 
I go a step further and say that the kings of 
this period themselves knew that there were 
great limitations to their power. A typical 
instance is furnished by the Telapatta-Jataka. 
Here we are introduced to a king of Takshasila, 
who is enamoured of a Yakshini or Ogress that 
has transformed herself into the most beautiful 
woman. PuUy conscious that she had obtained 
a perfect mastery over the king's mind, she asks 
him to give her authority over his whole kingdom 
But what reply does the king give though he was 



' I may have to say something of these institutions next year, but 
even in this lecture I have shown a little farther on how the town 
and provincial communities had to be consulted by a king even in 
regard to his succession, 



ADMIN ISTHATIVE HISTORY. 135 

hopelessly smitten with her unspeakable charms ? 
Does he hand over the kingdom as she bids him 
to do ? Ear from it ; on the contrary, he 

replies : "My love, I have no power over 
the subjects of my kingdom ; I am 
not their lord and master. I have only 

jurisdiction over those who revolt or do wrong. 
So I cannot give you power and authority over 
the whole kingdom." But power he had over 
his palace, and that he gave to her. Here then 
we have got a king who in distinct and un- 
mistakable words had to confess to his sweet- 
heart that he possessed and wielded no power 
or authority over his state and that what little 
power he had was restricted to the punishment 
of the rebellious or the iniquitous people. A 
clearer limitation of the kingly power is not 
possible. The king could not possibly have 
been invested with uncontrolled and unlimited 
powers, at least during the period we have 
selected. Nay, we may proceed a step 
further and turn to another Jataka story, the 
Eka-panna-Jataka as it is called. Here we hear 
of a king's son being fierce and passionate and 
being called Dushta-kumara for that reason. 
He was handed over to an ascetic for being 
tamed. The ascetic took the prince to a Nimb 
plant on which only two leaves had grown and 
asked him to taste one. The prince did so, but 
spat it out with an oath to get the taste out of 



136 LECTURE III. 

his mouth. He exclaimed : "Sir, to-day the 
plant only suggests a deadly poison ; but if left 
to grow,it will prove the death of many persons ;" 
and forthM^th he plucked up and crushed the 
tiny growth. Thereupon the ascetic said: 
"Prince, dreading what the poisonous seedling 
might grow to, you have torn it up and rent it 
asunder. Even as you acted to the tree, so the 
people of this kingdom, dreading what a prince 
so fierce and passionate, may become when king, 
will not place you on the throne but uproot you 
like this Nimb plant and drive you forth to 
exile." It is quite clear that the people not only 
exercised control over the king's power but also 
could prevent his son from succeeding to his 
throne if necessary. An instance of this kind has 
been mentioned in the Uddyoga-Parvan of the 
Mahabharata also. A king called Pratipa, having 
become exceedingly aged, made preparations 
for crowning his eldest and favourite son Devapi. 
The latter was no doubt possessed of many 
virtues, but had contracted a skin-disease, and 
was, therefore, unfit in the popular opinion to 
hold the reins of government. The subjects — 
the Brahmans and the Town (paura) and Coun- 
try (t'cmapada) people — tlierefore objected. The 
king burst into tears but had to yield to the 
popular voice.^ In the Uamayana also we find 

1 148. 21-7. Sagara also is said to have exiled his eldest son 
Asamafijas at the desire of the people because he used to drown their 
children in the river Sarayii {Santi-V., 579). Khaniuetra is also said 
to hav8 been deposed by his subjects, and his son installed in his place 
{Asvamedha — P., 4. 8-9). 



ADMINISTEATIYE HISTORY. 13*7 

that Dasaratha consecrated his son Rama as 
crown-prince only after respectfully securing 
the consent of the Brahmans, generals {bala- 
mukhya) and the Town {paura) and Country 
[janapada) people\ 

I have told you before (p. 123) that both the 
Artha — and the Dharma-sastra ordain that a 
king shall make good out of his own treasury 
any property of his subject that has been robbed 
by thieves but cannot be recovered. It is worthy 
of note that there is thus a perfect agreement 
on this point between the Artha-sastra and the 
Dharma-sastra. And certainly they both would 
not have laid down the law in this manner if 
such had not been the practice. And this cer- 
tainly would not have been the practice if the 
popular voice had not been strong enough to 
enforce it. So even for such a trifling matter 
as the stolen property of a private individual 
the king was controlled by the people ! The 
royal power could not possibly have been ab- 
solute, at any rate, in the period we have selected. 

There was yet another check to the arbi- 
trariness of a king which we have to notice 
here. There was placed before him not only 
the selfish point of view which advised him not 
to run up to an extreme and cause disaffection 
among his people but also a higher and spiritual 

' II. 2, 15 and ff. Yayati similarly crowned his youngest son, king 
only after satisfying the people Avho strongly protested because they 
at first thought that the eldest pi-ince was being unnecessarily set aaide. 

18 



188 LECTURE III. 

point of view which, I think, was no less effica- 
cious. In Chapter 75 of the Santi-Parvan we 
are told that a king attains a fourth part of the 
spiritual merit or sin that his subjects commit. 
The same idea we find better explained in the 
Uddyoga-Parvan. Here however only one-sixth 
part of the virtue or sin of the subjects is said 
to accrue to the king. And the question is 
started whether any particular Age makes a king 
what he is or whether it is the king who makes 
the Age what it is. The question is answered 
by saying : raja kalasya karanam/i.e. it is really 
the king who makes the Age what it is. If he 
is virtuous and enforces the Danda-niti or the 
science of government in its entirety and in the 
proper spirit, he will inaugurate the Krita 
Age. But if he is all sinful, the Kali Age must 
set in. It is thus the king who is held responsible 
for good or bad government and for making 
his people virtuous or otherwise. And a belief 
is expressed that one-fourth or one -sixth part 
of the merit or sin of his subjects must perforce 
go to him.V In these days when scepticism is 
rampant and no certitude is felt about the 
future world, such an expression of the reward 
and punishment to a king is apt to be looked 
upon as devoid of any force cr meaning. But 
in ancient times when the spiritual was felt to 

' Uddyoga-P., 131, 12 & ff. ; this curious doctrine has been set 
forth also in Snnti-P., 69. 79 & ff. ; and in 4nusasana-P., 61.34 & 36. 



Administrative history. 139 

be more real than the temporal, it is not difficult 
to imagine how powerful and effective this 
belief must have been in both stimulating him 
to good government and deterring him from 
misconduct and misrule. 



LECTURE— IV. 

Administrative History (Contd.). 

Samgha Form of Political Government. 

In my last lecture I referred to the monar- 
chical form of Government and the various 
notions prevalent in regard to the origin and 
nature of kingship. I then told you that there 
was also another form of Government called 
Samsfha or Gana. Let us now see what its 
characteristic features were. Before, however 
I discuss this question, it is necessary to state 
that it was Prof. Rhys Davids who first pointed 
out that this form of Government was flouri- 
shing side by side with monarchy in North India 
about the time of the rise of Buddhism. It was 
afterwards Mr. K. P. Jayaswal, who perceived 
the importance of this subject and brought it 
to the more prominent notice of the students 
of ancient Indian history. In the article he 
has published^ he has collected much information 
bearing upon it, from which it is possible to 
draw a number of interesting conclusions. It is 
a pity that no scholar has so far come forward 
to further advance our knowledge of the ques- 
tion. This task, therefore, I set to myself in 

^ Modern Review, 1913, pp. 585-41 and 664-68. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 141 

the present lecture, which, it will be seen, 
presents the subject in a somewhat different 

light. 

Most of you will perhaps wonder what the 
word Sarhgha and Gana could mean and how 
in particular they could denote any non-monar- 
chical form of Government, or Government of 
the many as I have told you before. The words 
mean a corporate collection, an aggregation of 
individuals for a definite purpose. The terms 
were certainly known to Panini, and were thus 
current about the middle of the 7th century 
B. C. to which period he has to be assigned. They 
occur in no less than three of his Sutras. One of 
these is Samgh-odghau gana-prasamsayoh\ This 
Sutra is very important, but unfortunately its 
proper meaning has not been perceived. The 
word samgha comes from the root sam + han, "to 
collect, to gather." The regular noun form from 
it is samghata, which means merely 'a collection 
or assemblage.' But there is another noun derived 
from it, though it is irregularly formed, viz. 
samgha. Panini is, therefore, compelled to make 
a special sTitra to acknowledge its existence in 



> III. 3. 86; the second Sutra is III. 3. 42, which teaches the 
formation of the word iiikaya in the sense of ' a Samgha but without 
any conception of its gradation.' The third is V. 2. 52. From the time 
of Buddha onwards we find the word Gaim used to denote religious 
and political bodies. In the former case it was employed promiscuously 
with Samgha. But in the political sense, Oana denoted only one kind 
of Samgha, viz. an oligarchy, as we shall see subsequently. 



142 



lECTIJIlE IV. 



the spoken language and to tell us that it does 
not signify a mere collection as the other word, 
viz. samg/iata, does, but, a f/cuia, U, a special kind 
of collection, or a corporate collection as I have 
just said. It Avill thus be seen that the techni- 
cal senses of these words were known to Panini. 

Sariigha or Gana is, therefore, not a promis- 
cuous conglomeration, but a combination of 
individuals for a definite object, in other words, 
a corporate body. It will be seen that there can 
be as many kinds of Samghas as there are differ- 
ent purposes with which they can be constitu- 
ted. And, as a matter of fact, it was so in ancient 
India, and especially in the period with which 
we are dealing. If we have a fraternity com- 
posed of persons devoted to a particular set of 
religious beliefs, we have a religious Sariigha, 
the most typical example of which is the 
Buddhist Sariigha. It is a mistake to suppose 
that Buddha was the first religious founder to 
appropriate the term Samgha to the brotherhood 
originated by him. The Pali Canon itself men- 
tions no less than seven religious teachers like 
Buddha who were his contemporaries, viz. 
Purana-Kassapa, Makkhali-Gosala, and so forth.' 
These have all been called SamgUno, heads of 
Sariighas, Ganino, heads of Ganas and Ganacha- 
riya, teachers of Ganas.^ It will thus be perceiv- 
ed that the brotherhood founded by Buddha was 

E.g. the Maha-parinibbwia-sutia, 58, 



ADMINISTRATIYE HISTORY. 14i3 

not the only religious order known as Sariiglia 
but even in his time there were no less than seven 
which were similary styled Samgha or Gana. 
Nay, these heads of religious Samghas are said to 
have been Samana-brahmana/ which means 
that while some of these Samghas were Sramana, 
others were Brahmanical, orders. This clearly 
shows that there were sects of Brahmanical 
ascetics also which were designated Samghas 
or Ganas.^ Saingha, as a word for ' a religious 
order', was common both to the Brahmanical 
and non-Brahmanical sects. 

So much for the Samgha or body formed for 
a religious purpose. But we may also have a 
Samgha for the purpose of trade and industry 
or, in other words, a trade or craft guild. You 
will be surprised if I tell you that from about 
500 B. C. to 600 A. D. India was studded with 
craft guilds of various types showing how well 
industry and trade were specialised and developed. 

^ In translating the passage from this sutta, Prof. Ehys Davids 
missed the true sense of the terms Sfl??igf/ia and Gnna and also of the 
phrase Samana-brahmana (SBE., XI. 105 and n. 1). The latter he 
translates by "the Rrahmans by saintliness of life" and not by 
"Samanas and Brahmans," because none of the heads of these reli- 
gious Saihghas was a Biahman according to the Sumangala-vilasinl. 
How far the authority of this commentary in this matter is reliable 
I do not know, but that the phrase samana-hrahmana is a Dvandva and 
not a Karmadhfiraya compound as Prof. Rhys Davids takes it, is clear 
from the following: Nahan-tam passami samanam va brahmavam va 
sahghim gnnim ganaehariyam, etc. {Maj-N., I. 227). 

^ Conij are e.g. the phrase panchaiinarii isi-satanam Gana-sattha 
which we meet witli in the Jatakas (11. 41. 10-11; 72. 12 and Ac). 



144 LECTIJEE IV. 

This is not the place to give an account of 
these guilds or Srenis as they were technically 
called. These I hope to describe in one of my 
lectures some year. What I here want to say 
is that the Srenis were really Samghas and have 
been so called by Kautilya in his Artha-sastra.^ 
Kautilya distinguishes between three kinds of 
Sarhghas, one of which is vart-opajlvin, i.e. 
dependent upon industry, and is also styled 
^renin by him. 

A third class of Samgha is ayudha-jlvin as 
Panini calls it, or sastr-opajwin as Kautilya 
styles it, both expressions meaning ' (a cor- 
poration) subsisting on arms.' This Samgha 
as a rule, denoted tribal bands of mercenaries, 
and constituted one kind of the king's army.^ 
Panini mentions several of them, some situated 
in Vahika and some in Trigarta, both parts 
of the Panjab. But perhaps the most interest- 
ing, referred to by him are the Yaudheyas, 
j'ars'us, Asuras and Kakshases. Of the Yaudheyas 

^ The expression actually used here is EdmbhoJa-Surashtra-ksha- 
triya-ireny-adayo vdrtd-sastr-opajivinah (p. 376), which I render as 
follows: " Kambhoja and Surashtra srenis (guilds), Kshatriya 
srenis (fiuhfciiig corporations) and so forth are (Saiiighas) which sub- 
sist on industry and arms." Elsewhere too Kautilya distinguishes sre7n 
(guild) from an ayndhlya (fighting) body (p. 203). 

- When 1 say that these Samghas were tribal bands of mercenaries, 
I do not mean that any particular baud of them must necessarilj' 
exhaust the whole tribe. This certainly was not the case with the 
Yaudheyas as we shall see later on. Though in Kautilya's time 
the fighting Saihghas were Kshatriyas, in Panini's time some of them 
were also Brahmans, as is no doubt implied from his Siitra, V. 3, 114. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 145 

I shall speak later on. Parsus are certainly the 
Persis, or old Persians, and Asuras the Assy- 
rians.^ Rakshases must be the same as Rakshasas, 
an aborio-inal race referred to in early Sanskrit 
works, and in particular the Ramayana. This 
indicates that some of the mercenary bands at 
any rate were foreigners. What the exact cons- 
titution of this Samgha was is far from clear. 
But as these fighting bands have all been called 
Samgha, there must have been some code of 
rules according to which they were formed 
and continued their existence. At any rate, 
a Yodhajlva or mercenary soldier, who was a 
gamani, is mentioned in the Sarhyutta-Nikaya ^ 
as discoursing with Buddha. As the word 
gamani, i.e. gramanl shows, he must have been 
the head of a fighting Sariigha. Erom his talk 
with Buddha it seems that there were many 
old Acharyas among them who themselves 
were soldiers and who held out to those dying 
on the battle-field the hope of becoming one 
with Saranjita gods. 

There are two or three other classes of 
Saiiighas which have been referred to in 



^ That most of the allusions to the Asui'as in the Satapatha- 
Brahmana refer to a foreign tribe; has been clearly established by 
Mr. Jayaswal in a note which he contributed to the ZDMG. immediate- 
ly before the war and the rough copy of which he was kind enough 
to show me. This emboldens me in ideiitifying the Asuras with the 
Assyrians and consequently the Parsus with the Persis. 

« IV. 308-9. 

19 



146 LECTURE IV. 

the Buddhist and Brahmanical literature, but 
there is no need of mentioning them here, as the 
instances I have ah'eady givea are enough 
to show what a Sariigha or Gana really 
signifies. A Saiiigha is a corporate body of 
individuals formed for a definite purpose. Let 
us now turn to the political Sariigha, which, 
as I have already told you, denotes the rule 
of the many, and which again was of three or 
four different kinds. It is really difficult to 
translate this Sariigha by any single English 
word, but the term ' republic ' as understood 
in old Greek political philosophy, makes the 
nearest approach to it. What is to be remem- 
bered is that this Sariigha possessed not Sovereign 
One but Sovereign Number. At this stage 
it is necessary to inform you that ordinarily the 
words samgha and gana are used synonymously, 
but that the term gana is also used in a specific 
sense, viz. to denote a particular kind of political 
Sariigha. But I may be asked to state here, 
at the outset, what authority at all I have for 
saying that there were political Sairighas. Now, 
the Ayaramga-Sutta,^ a well-known Jaina 
Canonical work, lays down certain rules in 
regard to the tours of the Jaina monks and 
nuns and tells us in one place what countries 
they are not to visit. The countries that are 
so tabooed are a-rciya [i.e. where there is no 

1 (P.T.S.), II. 3. 1. § 10. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 147 

ruler), juva-raya (where the ruler is a youngster), 
do-raj j a (government by two), and also gana- 
rctya {i.e. where Gana is the ruling authority). 
As all the states which the Jaina Brotherhood 
is ordaiued to avoid are unquestionably of a 
political nature, no reasonable doubt can be 
entertained as to this Gana being a political 
Gana. Another authority also can be cited, 
though it is of a somewhat later period. A work 
of the Northern Buddhists called the Avadana- 
Sataka (Circa 100 B.C.) speaks in its avaclana 
No. 88 of certain merchants as having gone 
from the Madhya-desa or IMiddle Country to the 
Dekkan. And there w€ are told that when they 
were asked as to how their country was governed, 
they replied by saying that keGhid=.desa Gan- 
adhlnali kechid=rdj-adhind iti "some territories 
are subject to Ganas and some to Kings." 
Evidently Gana is here contrasted with Bajan, 
and as the latter represents ' the political rule 
of One ' the former must be taken to represent 
' the political rule of Many.' Again, Panini 
gives a Sutra, viz. janapada-sahddt Kshatri- 
y ad ■=(1)1^, which means that the aifix an comes 
in the sense of a descendant after a word which, 
while denoting a country, expresses also a 
Kshatriya tribe or clan. To this Katyayana adds 
a vdrtika, viz. Kshatriydd=^eka-rdjdt Samgha- 
pratishedhdrtham. It is true, as Pauini says, 

1 IV. 1. 168. 



148 LECTURE IV. 

that the affix is to be applied to a word e.g. 
Panchala which denotes both a Kshatriya tribe 
and the country inhabited by them. But 
Katyayana says that this Kshatriya tribe must 
be eka-raja, i.e. possessed of Individual Sover- 
eign in order to exclude a Kshatriya tribe 
which is a Sariigha, i.e. a Kshatriya tribe which 
has Collegiate Sovereign. This exactly agrees 
with what Kautilya tells us. I have just 
told you that he distinguishes between three 
kinds of Saiiighas, one of which is vclrt-opajlvin 
or a craft guild and another sasU^-opajwin or 
a mercenary tribal band. The third Saiiigha, 
he says, is raja-sahd-opajlvin, i.e. an organisation 
all the members of which bear the title rajan^. 
In my last lecture I informed you that the 
Lichchhavis and the Mallas were typical examples 
of this Saiiigha. These tribes have been constant- 
ly mentioned in the Buddhist Pali Canon. And 
the Majjhima-Nikaya in one place distinctly 
calls them Sariigha and Ganal We were intro- 
duced here to a discussion between Buddha 
and a Jaina monk called Sachchaka. In the 
course of the discussion the former asked 
whether Pasenadi, king^ of Kosala, or Ajatsatru, 
king of Magadha, had power to banish, burn, 



1 Arihaaastra, 376. 

* I. 231 ; I do not think that the words sariigha and gana are 
her-e used exactly synonymously. Samgha here is the genus and Gana 
a Bpecies. The Lichchhavis and Mallas were specifically Ganas. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 149 

or kill a man in his dominions. At the time 
of this discussion, some Lichchhavis were 
present. And by pointing to them Sachchaka 
answers Buddha, saying; that if the Samghas 
and Ganas, like the Lichchhavis or the Mallas, 
had this power in their own vijita or kingdom, 
certainly Pasenadi and Ajatasatru did possess 
it. This indicates that the Lichchhavis and the 
Mallas were Samghas or Ganas and had their 
own territory where their power was supreme. 
It is thus clear that Samgha denotes 'a rule 
by numbers'. 

The best known form of political Samgha 
is Gana. What I have said so far to prove 
the existence of the political Samgha applies 
really to Gana. This Gana, as Katyayana and 
Kautilya give us to understand, was tribal 
in character and was confined to the Kshatriya 
order. It is a pity that no account of its 
internal constitution has been given in the 
Arthasastras, where we might naturally expect 
it. Under such circumstances the Buddhist 
Pali works and Chapter 107 of the Santiparvan 
of the Mahabharata are our only source of 
information. Very little do we know even from 
this source, but we have to be content even 
with that little. We have seen that the capital 
of the Lichchhavis was Vesali. The preambles of 
the Jatakas^ or Buddha's Birth-stories tell us 

' III. 1; IV. 148. 



160 LECTURE IV. 

in two places that there were 7707 Lichchhavi 
kings staying in Vesali to administer the affairs 
of the State. This agrees with the statement 
of Kautilya, quoted above, that the members of 
\ the Saiiigha were all designated kings. Quite in 
keeping with this we find the sons of these Lich- 
chhavi kings called Lichchhavi-kumaras or Lich- 
chhavi princes. As kings they were also entitled 
to coronation. We hear of there having been a 
special pushkarinl or tank in Vesali, the water of 
which was used to sprinkle their heads while being 
crowned. The tank was considered very sacred, 
and was, therefore, covered with an iron net so 
that not even a bird could get through, and a 
strong guard was set to prevent any one taking 
water from it \ It is not, however, clear 
whether these Lichchhavi kings were crowned all 
at one time, and, if so, on what occasions. As 
every one of the Lichchhavi Sariigha was a king, 
the probability is that on the death of 
any one of them his son who succeeded 
to his title and property was alone crowned 
king. 

The actual wording nsed in connection with 
the sacred tank which supplied water for corona- 
tion is Vesali-nagare Gana-rajakulanam abhiseka- 
mangala-pokkharani etc?. Here the phrase 
Gana-rajakula is important. It shows that the 

_ . .- , 1 Jai.IV- 14S-9, 

^ Ibid, IV 148.11.21-2. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 151 

political Sariigha called Gana was composed of 
various rajahdas or royal families, and that the 
heads of these rajakulas constituted the Gana. 
This receives confirmation also from Katyayana, 
the author of a Smdti, who says that kulanam 
tu samuhas=tu Ganah sa pariJmHitah^'^ i.e. a 
Gana (whether political or otherwise) is an 
aggregation of families. The account of the 
political Samgha given by Kautilya also shows 
that it consisted of Kulas or families. This is 
also clear from Chapter 107 of the Santiparvan 
referred to above. The members of a Gana are 
there said to be jatya cha sadrisah sarve kule- 
na sadrisds=tatha, i.e. exact equals of one 
another in respect of birth and family, and 
it is expressly stated that if quarrels break 
out amongst the Kulas, the Elders of the 
Kulas should by no means remain indifferent, 
otherwise the Gana will be dissolved.^ The 
political Samgha designated Gana thus pre- 
supposes the existence of manifold royal fa- 
milies or clans, and consisted of their heads 
who were styled kings. But even in a republic 
of the present day where the ideas of liberty, 
equality and fraternity are being imbibed and 
assimilated, the executive function has remain- 
ed only to the select few. Such was also 
the case with the political Samgha of Ancient 

1 Parasara-Madhava (Bib. Ind.), Ill, 250. 
» Vs. 27, 28 and 30. 



152 LECTURE IV. 

India. We not unfrequently hear of Samgha- 
mukhyas and Gana-mukhyas. They are men- 
tioned not only by Kautilya ^ but also in the 
^antiparvan. I quote three verses from the 
latter bearing on the point : 

Tasman = manayitavyas = te 

Gana-mukhyah pradhanatah 

loka-yatra samayatta 

bhuyasi teshu parthiva 

Mantra-guptih pradhaneshu 

charas = ch=amitra'karshana 

na Ganah kritsnaso mantrarii 

srotum=arhanti Bliarata 

Gana-mukhyais = tu sambhtiya 

karyam Gana-hitam mithah 

—Chap. 107, vs. 23-25. 

TRA.NSLATION. 

"Hence they that are the Chiefs of the 
Gana should be especially honoured. The affairs 
of the kingdom, O King, depend to a great 
extent upon them. 

"The safeguarding of the (secret) State 
counsels and espionage, O crusher of foes, 
should remain with the Chiefs only. 

"It is not advisable that any Gana, as a whole, 
should know the (secret) counsels, O Bharata. 

"But the Chiefs of a Gana, having assembled 
in secret, should do what is for the good of the 
Gana." 

^ Arthasastra, 377. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 153 

It is clear from the above passage that a 
select few AA^ere appointed by a Gana from 
among themselves. They constituted what may 
be called a Cabinet, and were in charge of 
the Department of espionage and also of all 
State affairs of a highly important and 
confidential character. This agrees with what 
Brihaspati, the author of a Smriti, lays down. 
The verses from his work are : 

Sarva-karye pravina8=cha kartavyas' = cha 
mahattamah II dvau trayah pancha \a, karyah 
samuha-hita-vadin.ih I kartavyaiii vachanaiii 
tesharii grama-sreni-Gan-adibhih 11.^ 

What these verses tell us is that two, 
three or five members of a corporate body 
should be appointed as Mahattamas or Chiefs 
and their counsels should be carried out by 
a Gana, craft-guild or village community. 

It will be seen from what I have cited that 
the real executive lay in the hands of the Gana- 
Mukhyas, who again were not one but many ; 
in other words, power was not centred in one 
single individual. No single member of the 
Gana was thus by himself a ruler or Rajan in 
the proper sense of the term. And this is the 
reason why Kautilya styles them IRaja-sabdin, 
which means that they were Hajans in name. 
This receives support from the Lalita-vistara2 



^ Vivadaratnalcara, 179. 
« Jjefmaon's Dd., p. 21. 
20 



154 LECTrRE IV. 

which says about the Lichchhavis that eJcaika= 
eva many ate aliam raja ahaiii rdj^^eti, i.e. "every 
one thinks : 'I am king, I am king,' " when none 
of them singly was, 

I have told you before that the preambles 

of two Jatakas inform us that there were 7707 

Lichchhavi kings in Vesali, the capital of their 

dominions. One Jataka further informs us that 

there were as many Uparajas or viceroys, 

Senapafcis or generals and Bhandagarikas or 

treasurers staying with the kings at Vesali. 

It appears that every one of these Lichchhavi 

kings had with him his own viceroy, general 

and treasurer. The Atthakatha and Sumangala- 

vilasini, which are commentaries on the 

Buddhist Pali Canon works, afford us some 

interesting glimpses into the manner in which 

Law was administered by the Lichchhavis or 

the Vajjls as they are also called.^ It is true 

that these commentaries were written about 

the fifth century A.D., but as they are known 

to have preserved many interesting historical 

details of the period when Buddha lived and 

preached, their account of the judicial admins- 

tration of the Vajjian kingdom is certainly 

worth considering. When a culprit was found, 

we are told, he was in the first instance sent 

to an ofiicer called Vinischaya-Mahamatra. 



^ JRAS., Vli. 993. n. 2 ; Kachchayana's Pali Grammar hy JameB 
D' Alwis, 99-100. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 155 

If he was found guilty, he was transferred 
to the Vyavaharika, then to the Sutradhara 
(rehearser of law-maxim), Ashta-kulika (officer 
appointed over eight kulas^ ), Senapati (general), 
Uparaja (viceroy), and finally to Rajan (king). 
The Rajan consulted the Faveni-pottliaha or 
"Book of Precedents," and inflicted a suitable 
punishment. 

Whether there were as many as 7707 
Lichchhavi kings ever staying in Vesali, as 
the Jataka preambles inform us, is somewhat 
doubtful. What we may safely infer is that 
the number of the kings constituting the 
Lichchhavi Gana was pretty large. It again 
seems that the Lichchhavi kings had each his 
separate principality where he exercised sup- 
reme power in certain respects. Except On 
this supposition it is not intelligible why each 
should have his own Uparaja, Senapati and 
Bhandagarika, and act as the magistrate in 
inflicting punishments. Nevertheless, the Gana 
as a whole had poAver to kill, burn or exile a man 
from their mjita or kingdom which meant the 
aggregate of the principalities of the different 
kings, as the passage referred to above from the 
Majjhima-nikaya clearly indicates. The Lich- 
chhavi kings, again, appear to be in the habit of 



1 The expression occurs also in one of the Damodarpur grants 
which are being edited by Prof. Radhagovinda Basak. Ae regards 
TivXa see Mann, VII. 119. 



156 LECTTJEE IV. 

staying not in their petty States but in tlie 
capital town, Vesali, and along witli their su- 
perior officers, viz. Uparaja, Senapati and 
Bhandagarika, leaving in their respective princi- 
palities their subordinate staff, such as the 
Vinis'chaya-Mahamatra, Vyavaharika and so 
forth. In what matters individually in the 
several states and in what matters conjointly 
in the whole kingdom the Lichchhavi kings 
exercised autonomy is not clear. This, however, 
is certain that their Sariigha was a federation 
of the heads of some of the clans constituting 
the tribe. 

The most typical examples of this political 
Samgha, as I have said, are the Lichchhavis or 
Yajjis and the Mallas. In my second lecture 
I have said that the former held Videha and 
parts of Kosala and had their capital at Vesali 
vrhich has been identified with Easarh in the 
Muzaffarpur District of Bihar. The capital of 
the Mallas AvaF> Kusinara or Kasia. Both these 
tribes have been mentioned by Kautilya, but 
he specifies four others which Avere similarly 
Baja-sabd-opdjlvi Samghas. These four are 
Madrakas, Kukuras, Kurus and Paiicbalas.^ 
The Madrakas occupied the country between 
the Kavl and the Che nab in the Pan jab." What 
province the Kukuras had occupied is not certain, 



Arthaiasira, 376. 
JflAS;, 1897,839. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 15? 

but most probably they were settled in North 
Gujarat.^ The capital of the Kuriis was Indra- 
prastha near Delhi, and of the Panchalas, 
Kampilya identified with Kampil between 
Budaon and Parrukhabad in U. P.^ In another 
place in his Arthasastra, Kautilya speaks of the 
Yrishni Sariigha also. We have independent 
evidence also to attest the existence of the 
Vrishni Saiiigha. At least two coins are known, 
the legends of which, as clearly read by Mr. A. V. 
Bergny for the first time, show that they belonged 
to the Vrishni Gana.^ No doubt need, therefore, 
be entertained as to the Yrishnis being a Gaya. 
There certainly must have been many other 
tribes which were Ganas. Some of these have 
been noticed by foreign writers along with other 
Samghas. 'Ihe foreign writers, whose statements 
can be of any use to us for the period we have 
selected, must of course be the Greeks who 
wrote accounts of Alexander's invasion of India. 
Let us see whether they make any mention of 
Sariighas, and if so, what remarks they offer in 
regard to their constitution. One tribe in the 
Panjab, which was settled on the lower Akesinea 



1 Eukura is twice associated with Apaiauta, once in the Nasik 
Cave inscription of Vasishthiputra Pujumavi and another time in the 
Junngadh rcjck inscription of Eudradaman (EI., VIII. 44 and 60). As 
Aparanta ia Konkan, Kukura should correspond to Gujarat. 

* Above, p. 52. 

s JRA8., 19"0'0, 416 and 420-1. 



158 LECTUEE IV. 

(Chenab), is designated Abastanoi by Arriail, 
Sambastai by Diodorus, Sabarcae by Curtius 
and Sabagrae by Orosius.^ They are identified 
with the Ambashthas of the Mahabharataby 
some^ and with the Saubhreyas grouped along 
with the Yaudheyas in the "Yaudheya-gana of 
Panini by others.^ In regard to this people 
Curtius says that "they were a powerful Indian 
tribe where the form of government w^as demo- 
cratic and not regal." According to Diodorus 
"they were a people inferior to none in India 
either for numbers or for bravery and they dwelt 
in cities in which the democratic form of govern- 
ment prevailed." Arrian, again, mentions three 
tribes, Kathanians, Oxydrakai and Malloi, which 
he describes as independent republics."* And in 
respect of the Malloi, in particular, Arrian tells 
us that Avhen they submitted to Alexander, they 
informed him that "they were attached more 
than any others to freedom and autonomy, and 
that their freedom they had preserved intact 
from the time Dionysos came to India until 
Alexander's invasion.^ Oxydrakai are of course 
to be identified with Kshaudrakas and Malloi 
with Malavas, which both have been mentioned 

^ Mc.- Crindle'a Ancient India : Its invasion by Alexander the 

Great, 155, 252 and 292. 

=> Ibid, 155, u. 2. 

3 lA., I, 23. 

* Mc. Crindle, 115. 

5 Ibid, 154. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY- 159 

as Saiiiglia tribes by Patanjali.^ Two other 
Panjab tribes I will note which have been noticed 
by Alexander's historians. When the Macedonian 
monarch went to Nysa, "the Nysians," says 
Arrian, "sent out to him their president, whose 
name was Akouphis and along with him thirty 
deputies of their most eminent citizens to entreat 
him to spare the city " Alexander "confir- 
med the inhabitants of Nysa in the enjoyment 
of their freedom and their own laws : and when 
he enquired about their laws, he praised them 
because the government of their state was in 
the hands of the aristocracy. He moreover 
requested them to send with him 300 of their 
horsemen, together with 100 of their best men 
selected from the governing body, which con- 
sisted of 300 members when Akouphis heard 

this, he is said to have smiled at the request, 
and when Alexander asked him why he laughed, 
to have replied, 'How, O King ! can a single city 
if deprived of a hundred of its best men continue 

to be well-governed? "^ Now, what do we 

find? We have no less than five tribes and 
peoples mentioned as being situated in the Pan- 
jab and Sind by the Greek and Macedonian 
historians of Alexander's invasion. I do not 
want to enter into any detailed discussion 
in this place, but it is enough if I say here that 

1 . His gloss on Panini, IV. 1, 168. 
« Mo. Orindle, 79-81. 



160 LECTURE IV. 

as their form of government is said to be not 
regal but democratic or aristocratic, these tribes 
must be looked upon as political Samghas. A 
Greek author at least would not fall into the 
blunder of calling a government democratic or 
aristocratic if it was not really so.^ 

Our account of the political Sarhgha will 
not, I am afraid, be complete unless I say a few 
words about Kula, its corporate unit. Kula, you 
are aware, denotes a clan or group of families. 
In the Anguttara-Nikaya ^ we have a passage in 
which Buddha distinguishes between the diffe- 
rent kinds of rulers. In the concluding portion 
of it we are told that one class of rulers was 
Pusa-samanikas or, as the commentator explains 
it, Gana-jetthaks, i.e. Elders of a Gana, and that 
another class of rulers was Ye mi pana Kulesu 
pachchek-adhipachcliam karenti, i.e. those who 
severally exercise autonomy {adhipatyam) over 
the Kulas or clans. Perhaps a most typical 
example of this kind of rale is furnished by the 
Sakya clan to which Buddha himself belonged. 
This clan had spread itself over a number of 
towns. The chief town, of course, was Kapila- 
vastu. But there were other townships belong- 
ing to the Sakyas, such as Chatuma, Samagama, 



1 Megasthenes also refers to republics in Ancient India. Thus he 
makes the general remark that "those who live near the sea have no 
kings " and also mentions the MaltecorSe and four other tribes who 
"are free and have no kiogs" (I.A-, VI. 840-1). 

9 111^76. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 161 

Khomadussa, Devadaha and so forth^ , There 
are no grounds to suppose that an office-holder 
was appointed by the ^akyas from time to time 
as Prof. Rhys Davids has said^ . The Pali Canon 
speaks only once of a king of the ^akyas. This 
king that they mention is Bhaddiya^ , and the 
words used are Bhaddiyo Sakya-raja Sakyanam 
rajjam kareti. The word here employed is raja, 
who, in the period when Buddha lived, was not 
elected but hereditary, and was not a mere presi- 
dent but a ruler. If Bhaddiya had really been 
a periodic office-holder, he would have been 
designated not Baja, but Mukhya or Gramani. 
We must not suppose that the king of the Sakyas 
was merely the chief of a clan, and had no sove- 
reignty over any people outside his clan. In the 
villages and towns held by the Sakyas, there 
were, besides the Sakyas, artisans and men of 
special higher trades such as the carpenters, 
smiths and potters who had villages of their own. 
There were Brahmans also whose services were 



' Rhys Davids' Buddhist India, 18. 

2 Ibid, 19. 

' VP., II, 181. The preambles of some Jatakas (e.g. Nos. 466 and 
536) lead us to infer that the Sakyas were a Gana and not a Kula. 
But these preambles do not form part of the Buddhist Canon and are 
certainly of a much later age than the Vinaya-Pitaka. What is 
narrated by them is based not upon contemporary or very nearly 
contemporary evidence, but rather upon traditions handed down by 
Acharyas, which were sometimes conflicting or different (e.g. Jat., 
V. 413. 10). The Jataka preambles cannot, therefore, be taken as 
possessing any authority when they run counter to what the canonical 
texts say. 

n 



162 LECTURE IV. 

requisitioned at every domestic event and who 
had their settlements in the Sakya country^ . The 
^akya chief was, therefore, not only the chief of 
his clan but was a yeritable ruler or Baja. This 
is also proved by the fact that Bhaddiya speaks 
of his being protected by a body guard wherever 
he went and also of his Nagara and Janapada — 
the capital town and kingdom — exactly the terms 
technical to the political administration. This 
is the luiladkipafya alluded to by Buddha which 
denotes not merely chiefship of a clan but also 
sovereignty over the territory occupied by the 
clan. 

Let us now pause here for a while and try to 
digest the mass of information we have collected 
about the political Saiiigha. One kind of this 
Saiiigha, viz. Gana, I have repeatedly told you, 
was a tribal organisation. But if you sup- 
pose that its sovereignty was confined merely 
to the tribe, nothing can be more erroneous. 
When a Gana-Sariigha is spoken of as having 
a vijita or kingdom and as having power to 
burn, kill or exile a man as we have seen 
above, there can be no question about sovereignty 
beinff vested in this bodv. The fact that there 
were Uparajas, Senapatis, Bhandagarikas and so 
forth connected with the Saiiigha completely 
confirms our conclusion, and clearly establishes 
its political character. The lowest political unit 



I Buddhist India, 20-1. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 163 

seems to be the Kula whose sovereignty is 
described as Kuladhipatya. It denotes not 
simply the domination of a Chief over his clan 
but also and principally his supremacy over the 
territory occupied by that clan. According to 
the Aryan social structure, every family 
(Kutumba) or household (Griha) had its head 
who was designated Kutumbin or Grihapati. 
The group more extensive than the family was 
the Kula or clan which also had its head. This 
formation seems to have been common at least 
to the first three grades of the Hindu Society, the 
Brahmanas, Ksliatriyas and Yaisyas. But then 
the functions of each grade had become differen- 
tiated and specialised long before the period we 
have selected, aud we know that the duty of 
the Kshatriya order was primarily to rule. Two 
kinds of authority had the Kshatriyas therefore 
to exercise — one over their Kula and Griha or 
Kutumba in common with the other classes of 
the Hindu Society and the other over the terri- 
tory which they conquered and occupied as 
Kshatriyas. A Kshatriya Grihapati or Kutum- 
bin we do not hear of as having ever become a 
ruler. It is the head of a Kshatriya Kula or 
clan that attains to sovereignty. The reason is 
not very difficult to understand. A territory 
that is to be ruled over has to be conquered, and 
for a territory to be conquered a sufliciently 
large band of fighting men is necessary. No 



164 LECTXJRE IV. 

members of a single Kshatriya family (Kutumba 
or Griha) can ever be expected by themselves 
to acquire any strip of territory. It is only a 
Kula or clan, which, because it consists of a great 
many households, and consequently a large 
number of fighters, that can be reasonably ex- 
pected to conquer any tract of land. This was 
the case with the ^akyas whom I have cited as 
an instance of Kula sovereignty. They were a 
clan, a branch of the Ikslivaku tribe. The 
province seized by them was called Sakya 
country after them and w^as governed by one 
ruler, and we know that it Avas occupied not by 
the Sakyas alone but also by the Brahmans, 
artisans and traders. 

As the chief of a Kshatriya clan becomes 
the ruler of the country conquered and occupied 
by them, the sovereignty must confine itself to 
the family of that chief. Such a Kshatriya 
clan is eha-raja^ i.e. with Sovereign One, as 
Katyayana calls it. But we have instances of 
Kshatriya clans, originally of monarchical consti- 
tution, becoming aristocracies. I have already 
informed you that the Kurus and Panchalas 
are mentioned by Kautilya as raja-sahd-opajivi 
Saiiighas. But the Jatakas and early Pali litera- 
ture clearly give us to understand that they 
were not Sariigha but eha-raja Kshatrij^a clans, 
i.e. clans each governed by one ruler. This 
means that in the sixth and fifth centuries 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 165 

before Christ, Kurus and Panchalas were monar- 
chical /Clans but became non-monarchical in the 
fourth century when Kautilya lived. We know 
that members of the royal family were often 
given a share in the administration of a country, 
and in proportion as this share would become 
less and less formal, would the state organisation 
lose the form of absolute monarchy and 
approach that of an oligarchy,^ The chief feature 
of a Gana, as we have seen, is its division into 
Kulas. In other words, the political power lay 
in the hands, not of the whole people but of 
a few families who constituted the Gana. This 
characteristic can apply, not to a democracy 
but to an oligarchy into which ^lone a monarchy 
can glide when it becomes a Gana. And we 
know that this characteristic was possessed by 
the political Samghas mentioned by Kautilya. 
We shall not, therefore, be far from right, if we 
consider the Kuru and Panchala Samghas as 
instances of the Oligarchic form of Government. 
A third instance is furnished by the 
Yaudheyas and in a curious manner. We have 
already seen that they have been mentioned by 
Panini as an ayudha-jlvi Sarhgha. But, on the 
other hand, it must be remembered that from 

^ Cf. Grote's History of Greece, ?t. II, Cap. IX. Sidgwick says : "But 
speaking broadly and generally, it is doubtless safe to affirm that when 
political society passed in Greece out of the stage of primitive kingship, 
it passed into that of primitive oligarchy," — The Development of 
European Polity, p. 72. 



166 LECTURE IV. 

his Sutra IV. 1. 178 it is clear that they were an 
eka-raja Kshatriya tribe even in Panini's time. 
It may seem strange how a tribe, which is once 
described as an ayudha-jwi Samgha, could be 
said to be a monarchical tribe. But really there 
is no discrepancy here, because firstly, an ayudha- 
j'lvi Samgha bears no political character at all. 
Secondly, such a Samgha need not include all 
the members af the tribe. We can, therefore, 
very well suppose that there Avere some Yaudhe- 
yas who did not come under this Saiiigha and 
that politically they were a Kshatriya tribe of 
the monarchical type in Paoini's time. But 
about the beginning of the Christian era at any 
rate they seem to halve acquired the nature of a 
political Samgha. This is indicated by the issue 
of their coinage which ranges between 50 and 
360 A.D.^ Like the Malavas they style them- 
selves Gana on their money. So they were a 
Gana, a political Samgha, when they struck 
these coins. It thus seems that from about the 
middle of the first century A.D. onwards they 
rid themselves of their monarchical constitution, 
and were settled down as a political Samgha. 
This is proved beyond all doubt also by a stone 
inscription found at Bijayagadh near Byana in 
the Bharatpur State.^ Unfortunately it is only 
a fragment of an inscription. But what is 

1 CCIM., p. 180 & ff. 
» CII., III. 252. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 167 

preserved is enough to show that it is a record of 
a personage who was Maharaja and Mahasenapati 
and also a leader {piiraskrUa) of the Yaudheya 
Gana. The title Maharaja and the Avord gam 
shoAY that in the year 371 A.D. — the date of 
the inscription — the Yaudheyas were a raja-sahd- 
opajwi Saihgha. The personage in question was 
thus one of the Gana-mukhyas. What is wor- 
thy of note here is that although he was a 
Mahara,ja, he was Mahasenapati. And how could 
he have been so except on the supposition that 
before he or his forefather became a Maharaja, 
i.e. a member of the Gana, he was Senapati of 
the royal family of the Yaudheya tribe ? The 
term Avhich denoted ' a general ' in the Gupta 
period is Danda-nayaka or Baladhikrita. The 
Avord senapati had long before this time become a 
hereditary title. This is, therefore, the third in- 
stance of a monarchical tribe becoming oligarchic. 
Oligarchy Avas thus one kind of Gana- 
Saiiigha. Let us see Avhat the other kind was. 
This kind is represented by the Lichchhavi 
Gana. I have already told you that it was a 
federation of the chiefs of the different clans of 
a tribe Avho ay ere also each the ruler of a small 
principality. I have remarked above that it 
Avas the custom of a Kshatriya chief backed up 
by his clan to go on conquering and carving out 
a small kingdom for himself. It seems that 
the chiefs of some of the clans comprising the 



168 LECTUEE IV. 

Lichchhavi tribe had similarly made themselves 
masters of the different districts and for some 
time remained independent of one another. A 
time seems to have come when instincts of self- 
preservation and safety impelled the various petty 
rulers to form themselves into a Saihgha or con- 
federacy. Each confederated principality main- 
tained its separate autonomy in regard to certain 
matters such e.g. as the judicial administration, 
and allowed the Sariigha to exercise supreme 
and independent control in respect of others 
affecting the kingdom, vesting the executive 
power in the hands of the select few. I 
know that perhaps some of you will feel tempted 
to compare the constitution of the Lichchhavi 
Samgha to the confederation of the German 
States called the German Empire. I admit that 
there are some points of resemblance here, but 
unfortunately we do not know enough about the 
former to institute any comparison that will be 
interesting or profitable. 

I shall now touch upon two points only 
connected with Gana. We do not know to 
what earliest period the existence of this Samgha 
can be traced., Certain it is that they were by 
no means few in the period we have selected, i.e. 
from 650 to 325 B. C. And they were certainly 
known as late as the 6th century A.D., because 
Varahamihira in his work entitled the Brihat- 
samhita^ speaks not only of Ganarajyas i.e. 

1 4. 24; 14, 14. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 169 

kingdoms of the tribal Ganas in Southern India 
but also of Gana-pungavas or Heads of Ganas 
such as of the Malavas, Kaulindas and Sibis. 
The second point that may be briefly considered 
is : how did the institution of Gana arise ? Did 
it originate in the political or in the non -political 
sphere ? In this connection let me draw your 
attention to a passage in the Brihad-aranyak- 
opanishad^ . The passage says that just as 
Brahman or Supreme Being created the four 
classes of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Yaisyas and 
Sudras among human beings, it created similar 
classes among the gods also. The Brahman 
amongst gods was Agni, the Kshatriyas amongst 
them were Indra, Yaruna, Soma and so on, and 
Vaisyas among them, Vasus, Eudras, Adityas and 
so forth. And then in connection with the Vaisya 
class amongst the gods occurs the following 
sentence: sa n=:aiva vi/abhavat sa visam=asri- 
jata i/ani/ = etcmi deva-jatani ganasa=^akhyayante 
Vasavo Biidrcl etc. etc. On the term ganasali 
Sankaracharya comments as follows : ganaso 
ganam ganamr=zahliyayante kathyante\ Gana- 
praya hi visah \ prayena samhata hi vitt-oparjane 
samartha n=.aikaihasah. This gloss leaves no 
doubt as to the sense in which the word gana is to 
be taken here^ . And as the passage from the 

^ 1. 4. 11-3; I am indebted to Mr. B. C. Majiimdar for this 
reference. , 

2 I may also mention that Gana ( = Yrata or Sardha) in the 
sense of a guild appears to have had Vedic precedents as was first 
pointed out by Eoth in the St. Petersburg Dictionary. They are referred 
to in the Parhchavimsa-Brahmana, VI. 9. 25 ; xvii. 1. 5. 12, Vajasaneyi- 
Saihhita, XVI. 25, and Taittiriya-Samhifa, 1- 8, 10. 2. 



170 LECTURE IV. 

Upanishad speaks of Ganas only in the case of 
Vaisyas and not of Bralinians, Kshatriyas or 
^udras, it appears that we had commercial 
Ganas (i.e. Srenis) first among the Vaisyas 
before there were political Ganas among the 
Kshatriyas. If the former is the prototype 
of the latter, the former must have been 
divided into Kulas as the latter were. And 
I was for a long time wondering whether any 
trace could ever be found of a commercial Gana 
being divided into Kulas, as no doubt it seemed 
very natural. I am glad that my efforts have 
proved saccessful, and there is now evidence that 
there were Kulikas even among merchants 
belonging to a guild. This evidence is furnished 
by the seals found in the excavations at Bhita 
and at Basarh^ or ancient Vesali, capital of the 
Lichchhavis. We have here seals not only of 

1. AST,-AR., 1903-4. p. 107 & ff ; 1911-12, p. 56; 1913-14, p. 138 
& ff.; some of these seeals have on them the legends : SresTithi-sarthava- 
ha-Jcidika-nigama, Sreshthi-hulika-nigama, Sreshthi-nigama, and Kuliha- 
nigama. Nigama in these legends has been taken to signify a corpora- 
tion, but ihei'e is no authority for it. According to the Amarahos a 
nigama means a vaiiih-patha, pura or Veda. The last sense is of course 
impossible here. Nor is the first sense practicable, because from 
Kautilya's ArthaSastra (p. 60), we know that a vanih-patha is a road of 
traflB.c whether on land or by river. The meaning is, therefore, unsuitable. 
The third sense alone is therefore possible, and is by no means unsuit- 
able. This alone can explain why, along with the seals of these 
Nigamas, we have seals of officials or temples sometimes associated. 
The seals of officials and temples side by side with those of the Nigamas 
are intelligible, if Nigama denotes ' a township ' but not if it signifies 
' a corporation ' supposing this sense to be possible, for a commercial 
corporation is an exclusive body and will not brook the sealing of any 
foreign member side by side with their own. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTOEY. I7l 

Kulikas^ , but also Prathama-Kulikas, meaning 
Kulikas who apparently were chiefs (of Ganas). 
We thus see that Gana was one kind of 
political Sariigha. Let us now see what the other 
kinds were. We will here revert to the Greek 
accounts of the political Samghas existing in the 
Panjab and Sind in Alexander's time. We have 
seen (on p. 158) that Curtius and Diodorus mention 
a people who possessed not one but many cities 
and whose form of government was not regal 
but democratic. On the other hand from Arrian 
w^e learn that Nysa was a City that was governed 
by an aristocracy consisting of 300 members and 
one President. The Greeks were so much accus- 
tomed to the nicest distinctions between an 
aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy that it 

[Since writiug the above, I was able to see the transcripts of the 
Damodarpur copper plates through the courfcsey of Mr. Radhagovinda 
Basak who is editing them for the Epigraphia Indica. They belong to 
the time of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty and are thus contemporaneous 
with the seals referred to above. While setting forth the administra- 
tive details the town officials also are therein specified, 'viz. Nagara- 
Sreshthin, Sarthavaha, Prathama-Kulika and Prathama-Kayastha. 
It is thus clear that the word nigama of the seals can mean a town 
ouly and that in the Gupta period while some towns were administered 
by Sreshthiu, Sarthavaha and Kulika together, some were governed 
by Sreshthin and Kulika only conjointly or severally. Along with the 
Nio-ama seal was associated that of Kuuiar-amatya. This agrees with the 
administrative fact furnished by the Damodarpur plates that imme- 
diately above the toAvn officials just mentioned was Kumar-amatya.] 

1 According to the Amara-Jcoia -. hulaTcah syat hula-sreshth'i, on 
which Kshirasvamin gives the following gloss : E^llam hayati KulaMh, 
KuliU ity^anye, sreny-adau Sreshth-Urthah hide vanig-vrinde sresh- 
thatvam = astij = asya Kula-sreshtjn. Bhanuji Dikshita's commentary 
is : dve Tiaru-samghe mukliyasya. 



172 LECTURE IV. 

is inconceivable that they could have gone 
wrong in describing these forms of government. 
When, therefore, we are told that a district 
containing many cities was administered by a 
democracy, we are compelled to infer that we 
have here the government not of a city but of 
a country, conducted not by a small body but 
by the assembly of the people. We regret that 
we are not in possession of more details which 
certainly would have been very interesting ; but 
what is preserved to us is enough to show that 
here is the second type of the political Saiiigha 
that we have to note. But a question here 
naturally arises : have we got any evidence from 
the Indian sources which confirms the above 
reference ? I am glad I am in a position to 
answer this question in the affirmative. We 
hear of two kinds of popular government : 
(1) Nigama and (2) Janapada. Both are demo- 
cracies, but the sway of the first was confined 
to a single town and of the second extended 
over a province. Just as we have got the 
coins of Ganas, such as l^audheyas, Malavas and 
so forth, we have coins also of Janapadas which 
can here denote only ' the people of a country ' 
in contradistinction to the ' tribe ' signified by 
Gana. The latter represents a government by 
the component families of a tribe and the former, 
a government of the people, in other words a demo- 
cracy. Thus we have found one class of coins 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 173 

which bear the legend : rajcma-Janapadasa = (com) 
of the Hajanya people. ^ The word Rajanyahere is 
not a synonym of Kshatriya or the Sanskritised 
form of the Rajput title Rana as is commonly 
supposed but rather the name of a people 
corresponding to the Ranas of the Pan jab hills" 
or Ra^es of the Goa territory. The second class 
of coins to be noted in this connection contains 
the legend: Majhimikaya Sibi-janapadasa=i 
(coin) of the Sibi people of the Madhyamika 
(country). "^ We thus have at least two instances 
of Janapada, viz. of the Rajanyas and Sibis, 



1 CCIM.. pp. 164-5 & 179-80 ; JRAS., 1907, pp. 92-3. 

- JRAS., 1908, pp. 540-1. That the word Rajanya denoted a 
particiilar people was known even to Panini, who mentions them in 
his aphorism : rajanyadihhyo run (IV. 2. 53). The Sutra teaches ns 
that if rim is applied to terms snoh as Rajanya and others, the word so 
formed becomes expressive of their country. Thus Rajanyaka means 
the country of the Rajanyas. Evidently by Rajanya a speciiic people 
is meant, a conclusion strengthened by the fact that along with Raja- 
nyas are mentioned Udumbaras, Arjunayanas and others who are well- 
known peoples and who form the Rajanya-gaim of PSnini. 

^ ASIR., VI. 202-4; XIV. 146-7; EHI., p. 213- Madhyamika is 
commonly taken to denote Nagari near Cliitorgarh in Rajpiitana and 
identified with that mentioned by Patanjali (lA., VII. 266). But that 
does not preclude ns from taking it also as the name of the province 
which has the city of Madhyamika as its capital. We similarly have 
Avanti and A}'odhy;l denoting each both a city and the province of 
which it is the principal town. In fact, this meaning alone can render 
the legend of the coins clear and intelligible. That Madhj'amikS was 
the name also of a province is certain. Chapter 32 of the Sahha-Parvan 
of the Mahabharata places M(a)dhyam(i)keyas to the south of Push- 
kar. Evidently they are the people of the Madhj^amika country, i.e. 
the province round about Nagari. The Brihat-samhita also places 
Madhyamikas in the Middle Country along with Matsyas. Madhya- 
mikas here can denote only the people of the Madhyamika country. 



174 LECTURE IV. 

having struck coins. And as issuing coins is 
taken to be an indication, of political power, 
this Janapada may rightly be looked upon 
as a democracy, and hence one distinct form 
of political Samgha. The existence of the 
Janapada or democratic government in India 
is traceable to a still earlier period. Thus in the 
Aitareya-Brahmana (VIII. 14) we have a passage 
which refers to the diif erent forms of sovereign 
power. There we are told that the Eajans of 
the Prachyas, the Rajans of the Satvats, and so 
on, are, Avhen crowned, designated respectively 
Samrats, Bhojas and so forth, but that 
the Janapadas called the Uttara-Kurus and 
Uttara-Madras are styled Virats when they 
are consecrated to sovereignty. Janapada 
is here contrasted with Raj an and cited 
as a form of sovereignty. The natural 
conclusion is that Janapada is a political 
form of government which was of a demo- 
cratic nature and was the rule of a country 
(as opposed to the rule of a town) by its 
people. Unfortunately we know nothing about 
its constitution. 

If a Janapada had its Samgha or demo- 
cracy, there is nothing strange in a Nigama 
or town having sometimes a similar form 
of government. Let me here place before you 
certain facts revealed by works of Hindu Law 
and epigraphic records. The Vivada-ratnakara, 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 175 

a treatise on Hindu Law, has a chapter 
called Samvid-vyatikramah, in which the ' 
various corporate bodies are referred to, and 
quotes two verses from the Narada-Smriti 
in which certain organisations are specified, 
■viz. the Pashandas, Naigamas, Srenis, Pugas, 
Vratas and Ganas. ^ Now the term Naigama 
has been rendered by the author of this work 
as Paiu'cih, i.e. the body of citizens. We know 
that the parts into which a country was divided 
were piira or capital-town, nigama or mofussil- 
town, and grama or village. And it is from this 
nigama that the term Naigama has been derived. 
The law-giver Yajiiavalkya'^ too speaks of 
Naigama as a corporate body along with and 
distinct from, Srenins, Pashandis and Ganas, and 
the commentary Balambhatti explains the term 
by ncma-paura-samuhaJi, i.e. aggregations of the 
manifold citizens. But it may be argued that 
this evidence merely proves that the people of 
any city could form themselves into a corporation 
but not necessarily that this was a political body 
which exercised sovereignty. Now, Sir 
Alexander Cunningham picked up some coins 
from the Panjab and of very nearly the same 
time as that of Alexander, which, as was first 



^ pp. 177 & 180. The word naigama cannot mean a guild here, 
as it has been distinguished from Srenin. 

= II. 192. 



176 LECTURE iV. 

shown by Biihler/ had all on the obverse the 
word negama but on the reverse various names 
such as Dojaka, Talimata, Atakataka and so 
forth. It is natural to take Negama here to 
stand for Naigamah, i.e. the body of citizens 
such as that mentioned in the Yajnavalkya and 
Narada Smritis, and the names Dojaka, Talimata 
and Atakataka for those of the towns to which 
they belonged. The Naigamas of a town which 
could strike coinage must be looked upon as a 
corporate body endowed with political power. 
This is exactly in keeping with the statement of 
the Visuddhimagga (Ch. XIV) that some Nigamas 
or towns and Gramas or villages also could issue 
money. In this connection, again, we have to take 
into consideration the contents of an inscription 
in Cave No. 18 at Nasik. The inscription is : 



1 Indian Studies, III. 49 & n. 1 ; Indian Palaeography (Trans.), 9. 
Buhler takes negama here to mean a mercantile gnild. But the proper 
word for ' guild ' is Sremn which is so frequently met with in Jataka 
literature and epigraphic records. The word naigamah again has never 
been proved to signif}- a guild. Again, we do not find mention of any guild 
without the specification of the craft for which it is organised. Besides, 
we never hear of a mercantile guild having minted any money, at any 
rate in India. Such a fact would certainly have been mentioned, if 
it had been really so, in the passage of the Visuddhi-magga referred 
to above especially as the expert knoAvledge of a heranniha or banker 
is there alluded to and guild coins would have therefore been the 
first to be mentioned if they had really existed. To say, therefore , 
that negama of the Panjab eoins stands for a guild is nothing but 
a gratuitous assumption. It is, therefore, natural to take negama in 
the sense of na?'ga?nai^ (= body of townsmeu) such as that mentioned 

ni the Yajnavalkya and Narada Smritis and distinguished from Srenis 

or guilds. 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 177 

Ndsikakanam Dhambhika-gamasa danam. The 
natural interpretation is that proposed by Pandit 
Bhagwanlal Indraji who says that it records the 
gift of the village of Dhariibhika by the 
inhabitants of Nasik/ We have here not one 
individual or a guild, but the whole people of a 
town, granting a village. And it is inconceivable 
that they could have done so unless they 
constituted a government holding sway over 
the town and its adjunct villages or nigama- 
gramas as they are called. When we, therefore, 
find that the people of a city could issue their 
own coinage and could together give any village 
in charity, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion 
that we have here an instance of a Nigama 



1 BG-., XVI. 590. This interpretation has been called in question 
by M. Senart (EI., VIII. 92), who says: " We have met with more 
than one instance of a genitive joined to the name of a donor, to 
indicate the community, district or clan to which he happened to 
belong. I suppose the case is the same here and the Dhambhika 
village, which had contrived at the common expense (nothing is more 
frequent than the paying of such religious expenses from the resources 
of the community) to decorate the entrance of the cave, must have 
belonged to the general population or to the township of Nasik." I am 
afraid, Nosjfeafcawara must mean "of the inhabitants of the Nasik city" 
and never "of the clan or district of Nasik" as is clearly but incorrectly 
implied by M. Senart (compare e.g. Nasik Inscription No. 22). The 
suffix &a has so far been found applied to the name of a village or 
town to denote an inhabitant of that village or town. And until 
an instance is adduced of this suffix being added to the name of 
a town and of the whole term so formed being used in the plural in 
the sense of 'district or clan', the interpretation proposed by Pandit 
Bhagwanlal Indraji seems to be the natural one. Besides, in the 
Satavahana period, not Nasik but Govardhana was the name of the 
district. 

^3 



178 LECTURE IT. 

Samgha or town democracy. Naj, towns could 
sometimes be governed by an aristocracy. We 
have already seen on the authority of Arrian 
that the form of government at Nysa was an 
aristocracy comprising 300 members and headed 
by the president. This would be another form 
of Nigama-Samgha which is neither an oligarchy 
nor a democracy. 

So much for the different kinds of the 
political Samgha that I have been able to trace 
at present. There must have been many other 
types of Collegiate Sovereignty prevalent in 
Ancient India, which I have no doubt the find 
of new materials and a re-examination 
of the old ones will bring to light. A few minutes 
ago I threw out a hint that the political Samgha 
called Gana was constituted after the model of 
the commercial Gana. The other political 
Samghas, vh. Nigama and Janapada, seem 
however to be the natural developments of the 
municipal administrations of towns and districts 
which were scattered all over ancient India and 
about which I may be able to say something 
next year. But the terms Samgha and Gana 
were appropriated also by religious communities, 
such as e.g. Jainism and Buddhism. As regards 
the Jaina congregation it was split up into 
Ganas, Kulas and Sakhas, a long list of which 
has been set forth in the Sthaviravali of the 
Kalpasutra. And this list not many years ago 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. 1^9 

received a remarkable corroboration from the 
specification of these Ganas, Kulas and ^akhas 
in the Kushana inscriptions found at Mathura.^ 
The Jaina congregation evidently was 
modelled after the commercial Gana, or rather 
after the political Gana, because the founder of 
Jainism was a Kshatriya, born in a suburb 
of Vesali, capital of the Lichchhavi Gana, and 
himself related to a Chief of this Gana ; 
a ad it is more natural to think that he 
framed his congregation after the pattern of 
the Gana he must have known best. The 
Buddhist Saiiigha was of an entirely different 
type. It is ti'ue that at the beginning of the 
Mahd-pa?inibbcma-sutta Buddha advises his 
Saiiigha to imitate the characteristic concord 
and amity of the Lichchhavi Gana, but no- 
where is it hinted that they were alike in res- 
pect of internal constitution. On the contrary, 
the constituents of a Gana viz. Kulas etc. which 
were the special feature of the Lichchhavi 
Gana and are clearly noticeable in the Jaina 
congregation, are, however, conspicuous by 
their absence in the Buddhist Saiiigha. The 
latter seems, therefore, to correspond to some 
Nigama or Janapada-Samgha. 

It does not require any stretch of imagina- 
tion to see that these political Saraghas were of 
a highly specialised order. We constantly hear 

^ VOJ., I. 169 and ff. 



180 



LECTURE IV. 



of the councils or parishads of the Lichchhavis 
and their holding frequent meetings. We also 
hear of sabhas and samitis of the Nigama and 
Janapada-Samghas. Is it possible to know 
something about the mode in which they 
carried on their deliberations ? This question 
must now present itself to us. Fortunately for 
us the Yinaya-Pitaka of the Buddhist scriptures 
has preserved the code of procedure according 
to which the meetings of the Buddhist congre- 
gation were held and conducted. As this con- 
gregation was a Sarhgha, it is perfectly intelli- 
gible that the set of rules which governed its 
deliberations must in their essence have 
governed those of any Saiiigha, be it political, 
municipal or commercial. Let us therefore 
try and know from the Vinaya-pitaka what the 
procedure of the Buddhist Sariigha was. You will 
perhaps be surprised when I tell you that it was 
of a highly specialised and developed character 
such as is observed by the political bodies of 
our twentieth century. The first point to note 
is the order of precedence according to which 
seats were assigned to the Bhikshus. There 
was a special officer whose duty was to see that 
they received seats in accordance with their 
dignity and seniority. He was called Asana- 
prajhapaka. We have got a reference to such 
a functionary in the account of the Council 
of Yesali preserved in the Chullavagga of 



ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY. ISl 

the Vinaya-pitaka. I quote a passage from 
it:^ 

"Now at that time a Bhikkhu named Ajita, 
of ten years' standing, was the reciter of the 
Patimokkha to the Sariigha. Him did the 
Sariigha appoint as seat regulator {asana- 
pannapaka) to the Thera Bhikkhus." 

The deliberations are commenced by the 
mover who announces to the assembled mem- 
bers what motion he is going to propose. This 
announcement is called Jnapti. Then comes 
the second part of the procedure which consists 
in putting the question to the Sariigha whether 
they approve the motion. It may be put once 
or thrice. In the former case the Karma or 
ecclesiastical act is called Jnapti-dvitiya, and in 
the latter, Jnapti-chaturtha. I will give an 
instance to explain what I mean and shall 
quote it from the Mahavagga. Buddha lays 
down the following rule in regard to the 
Upasariipada ordination^. "Let a learned 
competent Bhikkhu," says he, "proclaim the 
following natti before the Sariigha : 

"Let the Sariigha, reverend Sirs, hear me. 
This person N". N. desires to receive the upa- 
sariipala ordination from the venerable N. N. 
{i. e. with the venerable N. N. as his upajjhaya). 
If the Sariigha is ready, let the Sariigha confer 

1 SBE., XX. 408. 
^ Ibid., XIII. 170. 



182 LECTURE IV. 

on N. N. the upasariipada ordination with N. N. 
as upajjhaya. This is the natti." Now what 
foUoAvs is Karmavacha which is placing the 
motion before the Saiiigha for discussion and 
execution {Karmci)^ and is in evey case accom- 
panied by the formal repetition of the Jnapti. 
In the present case the Karmavacha is repeated 
thrice. I therefore quote here what follows. 

"Let the Sariigha, reverend Sirs, hear me. This 
person N. N. desires to receive the upasampada 
ordination from the venerable N. N. The Saihgha 
confers on N. N. the upasampada ordination with 
N. N. as upajjhaya. Let any one of the venerable 
brethern who is in favour of the upasampada 
ordination of N. N. as upajjhaya be silent, and 
any one who is not in favour of it speak. 

"And for the second time I thus speak to you: 
Let the Saiiigha (&c., as before). 

"And for the third time I thus speak to 
you : Let the Saiiigha, &c. 

"N, N. has received the upasampada ordina- 
tion from the Sariigha with N. N. as upajjhaya. 
The Saihgha is in favour of it, therefore it is 
silent. Thus I understand." 

As the motion has here been thrice put to 
the assembly, it is Jnapti-chaturtha Karma, 
i.e. it comprises three Karma vachas and one 
Jiiapti. A Karma or official act of the Sariigha 
to be laAvful must consist of one Jiiapti and 
one or three Karmavachas. When a resolution 



ADMINIS'ftiATIYE HISTORY. 183 

is placed before an assembly and all the 
members have observed silence, it is said to be 
adopted unanimously. If there was any debate 
and difference of opinion expressed, the matter 
was settled by what was called Yebhtiyyasika, 
i.e. the vote of the majority. This was done by 
issuing tickets or Salakas as they were termed. 
The Bhikshu who collected these tickets was 
called Salaka-gahapaka.^ If any member of the 
Samgha, owing to illness or other disability, 
was unable to attend a meeting he was entitled 
to give an absentee vote which was known as 
Chhanda.^ What is more, if at any meeting 
of the Saiiigha it is anticipated that the mini- 
mum number of the members required will not 
be forthcoming, care was taken to secure the 
necessary quorum. The 'whip' was called Gana- 
ptiraka.^ It will be too tedious for me to give 
a fall and exhaustive account of the code of 
rules that regulated the meetings of the 
Buddhist Samgha, but what I have stated is 
enough to show you that it was of a highly 
specialised character. We hear not only of an- 
nouncing a motion and placing it before a 
meeting, but also of ballot-voting, votes of ab- 
sentees, and, above all, the 'whip' — items which 
we are so much accustomed to think to be charac- 
teristic of the modern civilised age that I shall 

1 E.g. Chidlavagga, IV. 9 ; SBE., XX. 25. 

= E.g. Mahavagga, II. 23 ; SBE. XIII. 277. 

» E.g. Mahavagga, III. 6, 6 etc. and 26 ; SEE., XIII. 807 t ff. 



184 LECTURE IV. 

not at all wonder if my account appears to be 
incredible to you. Bat my authority, the 
Vinaya-pitaka, is there before you, and you can 
at any time read it along with the translation 
published by Professors Oldenberg and Rhys 
Davids, and I am sure that you will agree with 
me in saying that the set of rules for conducting 
the deliberations of the Buddhist Saiiigha was of 
a highly developed order, and shows how the 
regulation of debate was carried almost to a per- 
fection. Again, it is worthy of note that most of 
the terms technical to Saihgha debate have now- 
here been explained by Buddha. If he had been 
the first to invent these rules and coin new names 
for the various procedures, he would have 
explained them in ecctenso. But nowhere has 
Buddha told us what Yebhuyyasika, Chhanda and 
so forth signify.^ Evidently he borrows these 
terms which were already well-knoAvn in his 
time and which called for no explanation. We 
may therefore not unreasonably conclude that 
the various terms and rules of debate which 
Buddha adopted for his religious Sariigha were 
those which could fit popular assemblies only 
and must have already been followed by Sarii- 
ghas, whether political, municipal or commercial. 

' Of course, Jnapti has been fully explained by Buddha, as will be 
seen from the quotation from the Chullavagga given in the text 
above. But Buddha is here perhaps singling out one out of many 
forms of Jnapti prevalent in his time. The details specified by him 
about valid or invalid Karma, valid or invalid votes, and so on are so 
many and so complicated that th^y appear to have come into general 
cognisance after several centuries' working of the popular assemblies, 



Appendix. 
I. MANU. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 57. 

Shad=:etan purusho jahyad=blimnam 

navam =:iv =amave 
apraktaram = acliaryam = anadhi yanam = ra 

ritvijam v. 43. 
Arakshitaraiii rajauam bliaryaih ch— apriya- 

vadinim 
grama -kam aril cha gopalarii vana-kamarii 

cha napitam v. 44. 
[The above verses occur also in Uddyoga- 
Parvan, 32. 83-4, but without being attributed 
to any author]. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 121. 
Su-pranitena dandena priy-apriya-sam-atm- 

ana 
praja rakshati yah samyag=dharma eva 

sa kevalah v. 11. 

II. USANAS. 
Santi-Parvan, Chapter 56. 
Udyamya sastram=ayantam=api vedanta- 

garii rane 
nigrihniyat sva-dharmeiia dharm-apekshi 

nar-adhipah v. 29. 
Vinasyamanarii dharmarii hi yo=bhirakshet 
sva-dharmavit 

24 



186 APPENDIX. 

na tena clharmaha sa syan=manyus=tan = 
nianyum=:richchhati v. 30. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 57. 

Dvav=imau grasate bliumirii sarpo bila- 
sayan=:iva 

rajanam ch = avirodclharam bralimarLam ch = 
apravasinam v. 3. 

[This verse is found also in Uddyoga-Parvan, 
32. 57 and Sabha-Parvan, 55. 14, but with- 
out being ascribed to any author]. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 139. 
Ye vairinah s'raddadhate satye satyetare=pi 

va 
vadhyante sraddadhanas=tu madhu sushka- 

trinair=yatha v. 70. 
Na hi vairani samyanti kule duhkha-gatani 

cha 
akhyataras = cha vidyante kule vai dhriyate 

puman v. 71. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 57. 
Eajanam prathamaiii vindet=tato bharyam 

tato dhanam 
ra3any=asati loke=smin kuto bharya kuto 

dhanam v. 40. 
Tad-rajye rajya-kamanaiii n=anyo dharmah 

sanatanah 
rite raksham tu vispashtam raksha lokasya 

dharinl v. 41. 



APPENDIK. 187 

[These verses have been assigned to Bbargava. 
The Bombay and Bengal Recensions have the 
reading akhyane Rama-charite nripatlm prati 
Bharata. This yields no sense, for if Hama- 
charita is an akhyana composed by Bhargava, how 
can he address any king at all in his own work ? 
Hence I approve of the reading of the Southern 
Recension, viz. akhyate raja-cliarite nripatim 
prati Bharata. Here Bhargava is represented 
to have recited the verse to a certain prince 
when he was discoursing on the kingly policy. 
This sense is perfectly intelligible and natural. 
Bhargava must, therefore, here mean Us'anas, 
originator of a system of Arthasastra. And cer- 
tainly this is not the first instance of Bhargava 
being^used for Usanas. In Santi-Parvan, 210. 
20, we have e.g. Bhargavo nlti-sastram tu 
jagada jagato hitam, where Bhargava who dis- 
coursed on the Science of polity can be no other 
than Usanas]. 

III. BRIHASPATI. 

Santi-Parvan,' Chapter 56. 

Kshamamanaiii nripaiii nityaiii nichah 

paribhavej = janah 
hasti=yanta gajasy = eva sira ev=aruruk- 

shati V. 39. 

[This verse is said to have been taken from 
Barhaspatya-sastra]. 



188 APPENDIX. 

Saiiti-Parvan, Chapter 57. 

Guror = apy = avaliptasya kary-akaryam = 
ajanatah 

utpatha-pratipannasya dando bhavati sasva- 
tah V. 7. 

[Truly speaking this verse has not been 
ascribed to Brihaspati, but is said to 
have been sung by king Marutta as being 
approved by Brihaspati. What this means 
is not clear, but it perhaps implies that Marutta 
was an author belonging to the Barhaspatya 
school. The verse eccurs in Adi-JP.. 142. 52-3 
and also in Santi-F., 140. 48 in the dialogue bet- 
ween Bharadvaja and king Satruiijaya which 
seems to show that the verse is to be ascribed 
rather to Bharadvaja]. 

Santi-Parvan, Chapter 58. 
Utthanen =amritarii labdham = utthanen = 

asura hatah 
utthanena Mahendrena s'raishthyam praptam 

div=lha clia v. 14. 
XJtthana-virah purusho vag-viran=adhitish- 

thati 
utthana-vlran vag-vira ramayanta=upasate 

V. 15. 
Utthana-hino raja hi buddhiman=api 

nityasah 
pradharshamyah s'atrunam bhujanga=ivn 

nirvishaii v. 16. 



APPENDIX. 189 

Saiiti-Parvan, Chapter 68. 
Na hi jatv=avamaiitavyo manushya iti 

bhumipah 
mahati devata hy=esha nara-rupena tishthati 

V. 40. 
[This verse has been attributed to Brihaspati 
in the dialogue between him and Vasumanas, 
king of Kosala. That it is an original verse and 
not a paraphrase or adaptation of it is proved by 
the fact that it occurs in Manu (VII. 8)]. 

Santi-Parvau, Chapter 69. 
Krits^a sarvani karyani samyalc sampalya 

medinim 
palayitva tatha pauran paratra sukham=: 

edhate v. 72. 
Kiiii tasya tapasa rajnah kirii cha tasy=:adhva- 

rair=api 
supalita-prajo yah syat sarva-dharma-vid= 

eva sah v. 73, 
[The above verses have been assio-ned to 
Angiras which is but another name of Brihaspati ; 
in the very preceding chapter of this Parvan 
we find Brihaspati styled Angiras (vs. 5 & 61)]. 

IV. BHARADVAJA. 

Manu-srariti, VII. 
Nityam=udyata-dandah syan=nityam vivrita 

paurushah 
nityam samvrita-sariivaryo nityam chhidr- 

anusary=:areh v. 102. 



190 APPENDIX. 

Nityam =:iidyata-dandasya kritsnam =udvijate 

jagat 
tasmat sarvani bhtitani danden=aiva j)rasa- 

dhayet v. 103. 
N=asya = chchhidram paro vidyad= 

vidyach = cli]iidram parasya tu 
guhetkurma iv = aiigani rakshed=vivaram = 

atmanali v. 105. 
[I think, Manusmriti has preserved the origi- 
nal verse, and Adi-P. 142. 6-8 and Santi-JP. 140. 
7-8 and 24 are adaptations of them. Manu VII. 
105 occurs with slight changes in Kautiliya, 
p. 29. As the above verses are contained in the 
dialogue betvreen ^Bharadvaja and Satrunjaya, 
king of Sauvira, I have attributed them to the 
former]. 

Kautiliya, p. 27. 
Tasman=n=asya pare vidyuh karma kin- 

chich = chiklrshitam 
arabdharas=tu janiyur=:arabdham kritam = 

eva va. 

Kautiliya, p. 253. 
Kalas = cha sakrid=abhyeti yam naraiii Kala- 

kankshinam 
durlabhas=sa punas =tasya Kalah Karma 

chikirshatah. 

Kautiliya, p. 380. 
Indrasya hi sa pranamati yo baliyaso namati. 



APPENDIX. 101 

V. PARASAEA. 

Kautiliya, p. 13. 

Yavadbhyo guhyam=achashte janebhyah 

purush-adhipali 
avasah karmana tena vasyo bhavati tavatam. 

VI. VISx^LAKSHA. 

Kautiliya, p. 27. 

Na kmchid=:avanianyeta sarvasya srinu- 

yan=matam 
balasy = apy = ar tha vad = vaky am = upay un j ita 

panditah. 



INDEX 



[Abbreviations— Buddh. = Buddhist ; cap. = capi tal ; cont = con- 
temporary; d. = daughter ; dy.== dynasty ; f.= father; GJc. = Greek; 
k. = king; n. = name or note; q. = queen; r. = river ; s. = son ; 8fc.= 
Sanskrit'^. 

... n. of a tribe in the Panjab mentioned by Arrian. 

158. 
... s. of k. Bimbisara, 74, 75. 

teachers, 100, 109, 111. n. 1, 145. 

102, 107. 

god, 106, 

Brahman sage ; crossed the Vindhyas and 

carried Aryan Civilisation to the south, 18; 

his fight with the Rakshasas, 20. 
Mount Agastier in the Tinnevelly dist. where 

Agastya is supposed to have finally 

retired, 18. 
n. of a sacred place mentioned in the Maha- 

bharata, 13, n. 
121. 
god, 106. 



Abastanoi 

Abhaya 

Acharyas 

Adi-parvan 

Aditya 

Agastya 



Agastya's Hill 



Agastya-tlrtha 



Agganiia-suttanta 

Agni 

Ahichchhatra (Ahik- 

shetra) 
Aikshvakavas 
Ailavamsa 
Airavata 

A itareya -Brahman a 
Ajaka ( Ajjaka) 
Ajatasatru 



Akouphis 



. cap. of Uttara-Panchala, 52. 

. . n. of a dy., 56. 

. n. of a dy., 16 & n. 

.. 94, 95. 

. 2,3,21, 85. 

.. Aryaka, k. of Ujjaiu. See under Aryaka. 

. k. of Magadha, s. of Bimbisara and 
cont. of Buddha, 57, 66, 67, 74-79; 
story about the murder of his father 
Bimbisara at the instigation of Devadatta, 
75-6; war between Ajatasatru and 
Pasenadi, final defeat of Ajatasatru, 76-7 ; 
war with the Lichchhavis, defeat of the 
Lichchhavis and their allies, the Mallas 
77-9. 
president of the Nysians sent to Alexander 
at Nysa, 159, 



194 



INDEX. 



Ambapali 
Ambashthas 



Ambhiyah 
Amravati 



Andhras 
Anga 



Angaravati 
Angarishtha 

Aiiguttara-Nikaya 

Anuruddha 

araya 

Arrian 

Arthasastra of Kautilya 

Aruni 

Aryadeva 
Aryaka 

Asamanjas 

Asana-prajriapaka 

Asatarupa-JataJca 

Ashta-kulika 

Asoka 

Asoka 



Asolcavadana 
Assaka (Asmaka) 



.. q. of Bimbisara, 75. 

, n. of a tribe mentioned in the Mahabharata, 
same as Abastanoi, Sambastoi, Sabarcae and 
Sabagrae of the historians of Alexander, 158. 

. corrected into acharyah by Jacobi, 89 & n. 1. 

. in the Kistna dist., Madras Presy. ; Buddh. 
stupa at, 29. 

. n. of a tribe, 3, 21. 

. one of the Sixteen Great Countries, modern 
Bhagalpur dist., Bihar, 40. n. 1, 48, 49, 
55, 73 ; in the time of Buddha annexed to 
Magadha, 49, 73 ; also n. of a k, of Anga 
who gave a daily pension of 500 Karsha- 
panas to a Brahman, 73. 

.. q, of k. Pradyota, 64. 

. n. of a k.; his dialogue with the sage Kaman- 
daka, 112, n. 2. 

,. Buddh. Pali work, 48, 55, 69, 80; enumera- 
tion of the Solasa Maha-janapada, 48. 

,. successor of k. Udayabhadra of Magadha, 80. 

.. where there is no ruler, 146. 

... a Gk. writer, 158. 

.. 8, 15,88,98-101; date of, 88; consists of 
sutra and bhashya, 98-101. 

, . . enemy of k. Udayana, 62 ; driven away from 
Vatsa kingdom, 63. 

.. a Buddh. monk, 129. 

... k. of Ujjain, s. of Gopala; ousted his 
uncle Palaka, 64-5, 

... k., exiled at the desire of the people, 136. n. 1. 

... " seat-regulator ", 180. 

... 55. 

... officer appointed over eight Kulas, 155. 

.. Maurya emperor, 6. n. 1, 7, 23, 29, 32, 35, 
39, 54. n. 3, 82. 

, . . Kalasoka, of the Saisunaga dynasty ; removal 
of the cap. of Magadha to Pataliputra and 
holding of the Second Buddh. Council, 82, 

... stories about the Maurya k. Asoka, 69, 
... country, 4 & n. 3, 5, 6, 19, 22, 24. n. 1, 40, 
n. 1, 48, 53 & n. 5, 54 & n. 2, 56 ; asso- 
ciated with the Avantis in the Jataka, 53. 



INDEX. 



195 



Asnras 

Atakataka 

Atharvaveda 

Atthakatha 

Ausanasa ArthasSstra 

Ausanasah 

Avadana-sataka 

Avanti 



Avanti-dakshinapatha 



Avantiputta 

Ayaraiiga-sutta 
Ayodhya 
Ayodhyakanda 
Bahudantaka 

Bahudantiputra 

BaladhiJcrita 

Bana 

Baranasi 

Barhadratha 

Barhaspatyah 

Basarh 

Baudhayana 



a tribe, 144 ; identified with the Assyrian 
145, n. 1. 

n. of a town occurring on the ' negama ' 
coins, 176. 

110. 

a Pali work, 154. 

a work on Hindu Polity, 107, n. 2, 

a School of Hindu Polity, 89. 
147. 

country, 3, 22, 45, 48, 53, 54 & n. 2, 57, 
60, 64, 84, 114, 173, n. 3 ; mentioned by 
Panini, 3 ; the Aryan route lay through this 
country, 22 ; two capitals, Ujjeni and 
Mahissati, 45 ; one of the Sixteen Great 
Countries, 48 ; associated with the Assakas, 
53 ; one of the four kingdoms in the time 
of Buddha, 57; the Pradyota dy. of, 
64-5, 

the southern division of the Avanti country, 
43, 45, 46, 54; outside the Madhyadesa, 43; 
capital at Mahissati (Mandhata), 45, 54. 

matrouymic of the k. of Madhura in Buddha's 
time, 53. 

a Jaina work, 146. 

city and province, 16, 51, 173, n. 3. 

117. 

a book on the Science of Polity, 92 ; meaning 
of, 94-5. 

n. of a Pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 

90, 95. 
a general, 167. 
Sk. author, 47, 48. 
n. of a river, 50 ; cap. of the Kali kingdom, 

46, 50, 56. 
n. of a dy., 73. 

a School of Arthasastra, 89, 93, 96. 
site of old Vesali in the Muzaffarpur Dist., 

Bihar ; seals discovered at, 170-71. 
author of a Dharmasastra ; his quotation 

from the Bhallavin School of Law, 23-4; 

his view that revenue is king's wage, 123. 



196 



INDEX. 



Bavarin 

Bengali language 

Bhaddasala-Jataha 

Bhaddavatika 

Bhaddiya, 

Bhadra-devi 

Bhadrasena 

Bhagavata-PicTcina 

Bhagga 

Bhagwanlal Indraji 

Bhallata ( Bhallatiya) 

Bhallatiya-Jataha 

Bhallavin 

Bhandagarika 

Bharadvaja 



Bharata family 
Bharukachchha 
Bhasa 

Bhasha 
Bhattiprolu 
Bbima 
BhTshma 



Bhita 
Bhoja 
Bhntapala 
Birabisai-a 



n. of a Brahman guru, description of his 

route to the North, 4-5, 19, 22. 
Dravidian elements in, 27-8. 
65. 

n. of a she-elephant of k. Udayana, 59. 
k. of the Sakyas, 161, 162. 
q. of k. Munda, 80. 
s. of Kalasoka, 82. 
83. 

country, 63. 
177. 

k. of Brahmadatta's dy., 57. 
57. 

School of Law, 23. 
treasurer, 15i, 156, 162. 

a pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 89, 91, 
96, 97, 104, 106, 108, 111, n. 1, 113,189; 
mentioned by Kautilya, 89 ; mentioned in the 
Mahabharata, 91 ; proof of his work having 
been in verse, 104; dialogue with k. Satru- 
njaya, 106-7. 
59&n. 2. 

modern Broach, 23. 
n. of a poet, 58; date of, 59, 70 ; his dramas, 

60, 64, 80, 89. 
' spoken language ', 26. 
in the Madras Presy.; Buddh. stupa. at, 29. 
n. of a ' prince of Vidarbha', 2. 
90, n. 2, 111, 120, 124, 125 127; identified with 
Kaunapadanta, author of an Arthasastra, 
90, n. 2, 111. 
, seals discovered at, l70-7l. 
, designation of some Eajans, 174. 
, k. of the Nanda dy., 83. 
k. of Magadha, 57, 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 
75, 76, 81-2 ; a cont. of Buddha, 57, 
67; his dy. probably called the Naga 
dy., 71 ; called seniya i.e. Senapati which 
perhaps indicates that he was the founder 
of the dy., 72 ; expulsion of the Vajjis from 
Magadha and conquest of Anga, 73. 



INDEX. 



197 



Bodhi 

Bodhi-rajakumara-sutta 

Brahma 

Brahmadatta 

Brahmarshi-desa 

Brahmavaddhana 

Brahui 

Brihaclwharana 

Brihad-dranyakopa' 

nishad 
Brihaspati 



Brihat-sanihita 
Buddha 



Buhler, Prof. 
Ceylon 



Chaidya 
Chakrarartin 



Chalukya 

Chammakaras 

Champa 

Champa 

Chainpeyya-JataTca 

Chagda-Pradyota 



.. s. of k. Udayana, ruler of the 

country, 63 ; Buddha's sermon to, 69-70. 

.. 63 

. god, 92-4, 96, 120, 126, 128. 

. dy. of, ruling at Benares, 56-57. 

. situation of, 53. 

. a n. of Benares, 50. 

. a language ; Dravidian words in, 25. 

. the Great Immigration, a section of the Tamil 
Brahmans, 23. 

. reference to the Vaisya class of gods in, 169. 

. an author on kingly duties, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 
97, 104, 106, 111, 187-89; founder of the 
Barhaspatya School, mentioned in the 
Mahabharata, 91 ; his abridgement of 
the Science of Polity, 92-4, 96; quotation 
from his work in the Mahabharata, 97 ; 
discourse with Vasumanas, k. of Kosala, 
106. 

. a Sk. work by Varahamihira, 53, 168. 

Sakyamuni, 1, 4, 5, 17, 41, 43, 44, 49, 51, 53, 
55, 57, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77,' 78^ 84 
142. ' ' 

91, n. 1, 103. 

Aryan colonisation of, 2, 12, 13, 24, 38, 39, 40 
41 ; cause of there being an Indo-Aryan 
Vernacular in, 38; converted to Buddhism 
by Mahinda, 39 ; Magadhi already intro- 
duced before the advent of Mahinda, 40; 
Magadhi superseded by Pali, 41. 

n. of a country, 52. 

Universal monarch; its idea older than 
Alexander's invasion, 85-86; meanin- 
of, 128. 

descendants of Chalukyas, 10, n. 1. 

leather woi-kers, 30. 

cap. of Anga, 49; called also Kalachampa, 50. 

r. separating Anga from Magadha, 49. 

55. 

k. of Avanti, a cont, of Buddha, 57, 59. 



198 



INDEX. 



Oharition 

Ohatuma 

Chellana 

Cheta (Chetiya) 

Chetaka 

Chefca-rattha 

Cheti 

Chhanda 

Chhandogya Upanishad 

Choda 

C^oras (Cholas) 



Chullasutasoma Bii'th 
Chullavagga 
Chutukala 
Cleisobora (Krishna- 

pura) 
Collegiate Sovereign 
Cunningham 
Cnrtius 

Dakshina-Kosala 
Dakshina-Kurn 
dalcshina pada 
Dakshina-Panchala 
Dakshinapatha 



, n. of a Gk. lady occurring in a farce of the 

second century A.D., 36. 
. a Sakya township, 160. 
. d. of Chetaka, a Liohchhavi chief, 74. 

same as Chedi, 52. See under Cheta-rattha. 
. a Lichchhavi chief, 74, 78. 

n of a kingdom, modern Bundelkhand, 51, 52. 
, country, 48, 51. See under Chetarattha. 
, ' an absentee vote,' 183, 184. 
26, 27. 
n. of a tribe, 6, 7 ; called Chola in Tamil and 

Chola in Telugu, same as Sk. Chora, 8. 
a people ; its meaning ' thief ' in Sk. 
derived from, 8 ; mentioned for the first 
time in the Taittiriya Aranyaka, 9. 
50. 
40. 
n. of a Dravidian k., 33, 34, n. 1 

9. 

148. 

49, 52, 175. 

a Gk. writer, 158. 

16, n. 4. 

country, 52. 

'with southward foot', 2. 

52. 

S. India ; 2-41, 44-7, 48 ; Aryan colonisation 
of the country : the Aryans going down to 
Vidarbha in the period of the Aitareya 
Brahmana, and coming in contact with the 
South Indian tribes, Andhras, Pnndras, 
Sabaras, Pulindas and Miitibas, 2-3 ; 
Panini mentions no province south of the 
Narmada except Asmaka., 4 ; route of 
Bavarin to N. India straight through the 
Vindhyas, 4-5 ; S. Indian countries, Choda 
and Kerala, known to Katyaj-ana but not to 
Panini, 6-7 ; the migration of the Aryan 
tribe Pandyas from the North to the South, 
9-13; colonisation of S.India by Aryan 



INDEX. 



199 



Damodarpur plates 

Danclakaranya 

Dandakya 

Dandanayaka 

Dandaniti 

Dantapura 

Darsaka 

Dasaka (Darsaka) 
Dasasiddhaka 
Dasyus (Dasa) 

Devadaha 
Devadatta 



Kshatriya tribes e.g. the Bhojas, Ailas and 
the Ikshvakus, 14-17 ; Agastya, an Aryan 
sage, accepted by the Tamil, people as the 
founder of their language and literature, 
18 ; migration of the Rishis for missionary 
purpose e.g, Bavarin, 17-21 ; the Aryan 
route to the south lay through Avanti, 
the Vindhyas, then Vidarbha, then Mulaka 
and then Asmaka and from there through 
the Raichur, and Chitaldrug districts to 
Madura, 22-3 ; the sea-route to the S., 
23-4; the Aryan language could not 
supplant the Dravidian languages of the 
S., 25 ; as a result of Aryan influence 
even the aborigines began to adopt Aryan 
names, and in the KistnS dist. from about 
150 B.C. to 200 A.D. the people spoke an 
Aryan tongue, 80-31 ; the Aryan Pali, 
the official language of the Canarese- 
speaking and Tamil-speaking countries, 
32-4 ; Aryan vocables mixed up with 
Dravidian vocables in the second century 
A.D., 35-7 ; the Aryan domination failed to 
eradicate the Dravidian languages, 37 ; 
the term used with reference to the 
Madhyadesa, 44-7 ; original meaning of, 45. 

of the Imperial Guptas, details of adminis- 
trative history contained in, I7l, n. 

20. 
, k. of Dandaka, 15. 

general, 167. 

Science of Polity, 92, 94, 126. 

cap. of Kalinga, 54. 

k. of Rajagriha, 59, 69, 70, 7l, 80, 81 ; called 
Naga-Dasaka, 71, 80. 

80. See under Darsaka. 

k. of the Nanda dy., 83. 

n. of a tribe, 3 ; originally denoted the Dahae 
people, 8. 

a Sakya township, 161. 

cousin but enemy of Buddha, 75, 76. 



200 



INDEX. 



Devapi 

Devarata 

Dhambhika 

Dhana 

Dhananjaya 

Dharmapala 

Dharinasastra 

Dharinasutra 
Digha-Nikaya 



Diodorus 

D irgha-charay aiia 

Divine Right of Kin| 

Dojaka 

do-rajja 

Dravidians 



Dronacharya 
Dronaparvan 
Dushtakumara 
Dvaraka 
Egyptian papyrus 



Ekapan na -Jataka 

Eka-pundarika 

eka-raja 

eka-rai 

Gamani (Gramani) 

Gana (Sarhgha) 



s. of k. Pratipa, 136. 

adopted s. of Visvamitra, 3. 

n. of a village, 177. 

k. of the Nanda dy., 83. 

k. of the Brahmadatta dy., 57. 

k. of the Pala dy., 118. 

103, n.2, 107, 108, ii.2, 123 ; included under 
itihasa, 108, n.2. 

23. 

a Pali work, 69, 79, 121 ; description of the 
evolution of men and society contained 
in, 121. 

a Gk. writer, 158. 

a Pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 90. 

129. 

n. of a town occurring on 'negania' coins, 176. 

government by two, 147. 

a race, 18, 25, 26, 27, 28, 37, 38; their Ian- 
guage once spoken in N. India, later on 
superseded by the Aryan tongue, 25, 28. 

96, 

96. 

story of, 135-136. 

n. of a city, 10. 

evidence of, 35-7 ; Canarese words traced 
in, 36 ; Canarese spoken by even princes 
of Dra vidian extraction in S. India in the 
second century A.D., the language strongly 
tinctured with Aryan words, 37. 

135. 

a favourite elephant of k. Prasenajit, 66. 

tribe possessed of individual sovereign, 148. 
, 'sole- monarch', 84. 

head of a Samgha, 145. 

corporate collection for a definite purpose, in 
which technical sense it was known to 
Panini, 141-2, 146; gana, religious, 142-3, 
178 ; formed for the purpose of trade and 
industry, 143-4; fighting corporations, 144-5 ; 
gana synonymous with samgha, 146 ; a 
form of political samgha, 146-47 ; contrasted 



INDEX. 



201 



Ganachariya 

Gandarai 

Gandhara 



Ga7iino 

Gana-j etthakas 

Gana-mukhyas 

Gana-pungavas 

Oana-rajdkula 

Gariarajyas 



with rajan, means 'the political rule of 
Many,' 147 ; Kshatriya tribes having 
Collegiate Sovereign : Lichchhavis and 
Mallas, 148-50, 156 ; Madrakas, Kuknras, 
Kurns and Panchalas, 156 ; composed of 
rajahulas or ' royal families ', 150-51 ; 
appointment of gana-mukhyas or a gana 
cabinet or executive 152-4 ; judicial ad- 
ministra tion in the Vajjian gana, 154-5 ; 
power to kill, burn or exile a man, 155 ; 
testimony of Gk. writers regarding Indian 
tribes having republican form of political 
government, 157-60, 171-72, and 160, n.l ; 
Mila, the corporate unit of a gana, 160-64 ; 
proof of its being an oligarchy, 165 ; 
instances of eka-raja Kshatriya tribes 
becoming raja-sabd-cpajivl e.g. Kurus, 
Panchalas and Yaudheyas, 164-67 ; the 
period when it flourished, 168-69 ; how the 
institution arose, evidence of the Brihad- 
araiiijah-opanishad, commercial ganas the 
prototype of political ganas, 169-70, 178 ; 
other kinds of political Sariigha— ^''tg-ama 
and Janapada, 171-78 ; Janapada, rule of 
a country by its people, 174 ; Nigama, 
town-democracy, 177-78 ; the mode in 
which deliberations were carried on in the 
councils or assemblies of the ganas, 
180-84; Buddha's srano. or saTOfir/ia not the 
first of its kind, 142-3, 184. 

teachers of ganas, 142. 

Gandhara, 54, n. 3. 

one of the Sixteen Great Countries, 48 ; posi- 
tion of, cap. at Takshasila, 54 ; two 
caps., 54, n. 3. 

heads of ganas, 142. 

Elders of a Gana, 160. 

Chiefs of a Gana, 152-3. 

Heads of Ganas, 169. 

Gana, composed of rajahulas, 150-51. 

kingdoms of tribal Ganas, 168-69. 



202 

Gana-raya 

Gaurasiras 

Gautama 

Ghoshavati 

Gh otakamukha 

Girivraja 

Godavari 

Goldstiicker 

Gonardda 

Gopala 

Gopala 

Oopatha-Brahmaiia 

Govishanaka 

Grama 

Harivarnsa 

Harshacharita 

Harshavardhana 

Himalaya 

Hindu monarchy 



Hindu polity 



Hobbes 

Huna territory 

Ikshvakus 

Indra 

Indraprastha 

Ireneeus 



INDEX. 

(state) 'where Gana is the ruling authority', 

147. 
author of an Arthasastra of the pre-Kautilyaa 
period, 91, 96,97, 109, 112. 

, author of a Dharmasutra, 123. 

. n. of a lute, 59 & n. 2. 

. author of an Arthasastra, 90. 

, cap. of Magadha, 50, 81. 

. r., 4, 16, 19, 53, n. 5. 

. 105, 106. 

. birth place of Patanjali, 4 & n. 4. 

. s. and successor of k. Pradyota, 64 ; n. 
omitted in the Pnranas, 65. 

. k. of the Pala dy. elected by the people, 118. 

. 52. 

. one of the Nine Nandas, 83. 

. village, 175 ; power to issue money, 176. 

. 15. 

. life of k. Harsha by Bana, 47. 

,. k. of Kauauj, 47. 

. mountain, 42, 44, 85. 

. conceptions of, 114-39 ; necessity of a king, 
114-18 ; notions of the origin of kingship — 
theories of the Social Contract and Divine 
Origin of kings, 119-28 ; checks on the 
arbitrariness of a king, 129-39. 

.. literature on, 87-113 ; Kautilya's enumeration 
of different schools of, 89 and individual 
authors of, 89-90, 111 ; individual authors 
as known from the Mahabharata, 91, 96 ; 
the form in which the ancient authors 
wrote, 97-98 ; the Artbasastras of the 
pre-Kautilyan period were metrical in 
form, 106 ; the origin of Arthasastra in 
India cannot be later than 650 B.C., 110. 

.. 119, 122, 124. 

.. placed in the Uttarapatha, 47. 

.. an historical royal dy. of N. India, 16, 17, 84. 

.. author of an Arthasastra, 92, 94, 95. 

.. city, 157. 

.. a Christian f., 129. 



INDEX. 



203 



Itihasa 
Jaggayapeta 
Jalika 
James II 

Janapada 



Janapada-samgha 

Jatakas 

Jaugada 

Jayaswal, K. P. 

Jayavarman 

Jlv^aka Komarabhach- 

chha 
Jiiapti 

juva-raya 
Kachchha 
Kadamba 

Kadambari 
Kadera 
Kaivarta 
Kajangala 

Kakavarna 

Kalachampa 

Kalalaya 

Kalasoka 

Kalinga 



Kamandaka 



. Kautilya's definition of, 107-8, 108, n. 2, 110. 

. Buddh. stupa at, 16 ; inscriptions,29. 

. s. of Kalasoka, 82. 

. k. of England ; Parliamentary speech on the 
Divine Origin of Kingship, 130. 

. Country people, 136, 

. a form of political Samgha, provincial 
democracy, 172-4, l78, 179 ; evidence re. 
Janapada-samgha e.g., coins of Rajanya and 
Sibi peoples, 172-4 ; traceable to the period 
of the Aitareya-Brahmana which refers 
to the Janapadas Uttara-Kurus and Uttara- 
Madras who are styled Virats when 
consecrated to sovereignty, 174. 

.. 179. 

, a Pali work containing Buddha's pre-birth 
stories, 44, 46, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 149, 154. 

, in the Ganjam dist., 29. 
58, n. 1, 140, 145, n. 1. 

, a k. of S. India 33. 

. a physician, 74, 75- 
announcement of a motion to the assembly, 

181. 
(state) 'where the ruler is a youngster ', 147. 
country, 3, 23 ; mentioned by Panini, 3, 
descendants of the Kadambas, 10, n. 1 ; the 

dy., 33. 
a Sk. work by Bana, 96. 
tribe, country and king, 6-7. 
one of the Nine Nandas, 83. 
a town to the east of the Madhyade^a, 43; 

situation of, 44. 
the Puranic epithet of Kalasoka, 82. 
See under Champa, 
a Dravidian royal name, 34, n. 1. 
See under Asoka. 
country, 3, 24, n. 1, 39, 40 & n. 1, 54; 

mentioned by Panini, 3 ; cap. at Danta- 
pura, 54. 
date of 94, n. 1. 



204 



INDEX. 



Kamandakiya N'ltisara . 
Kamboja 

Kambujiya 

Kampilya 

Kanchipura 

Kandra-Manikkam 

Kanha (Krishna) 

Kaniaka-Bharadvaja . 

Kapilavatthu (Kapilg 
vastu) 

Karma 

Karmavacha 

Kartikeya 

Kaseyas 

Kasi 

Kasi-Kosala 

Kasipura 

Kasi-rattha 



Kathanians 

Kathasarit-sagara 

Katyayana 

Katyayana 

Katyayana 

Kaulindas 

Kaunapadanta 

Kausambi 

Kaushitaki- Upanishad 
Kautilya 



. a work on Arthasastra, 97. 

. country, 48, 54; three meanings of, according 

to Panini, 6. 
. n. of the Kamboja people in Ancient Persian 

inscriptions, 55. 
, modern Kampil, U. P., 157. 
. modern Conjeveram, 33, 34. 
. n. of a village, 23 
a Damila, 30. 
, a pre-Kantilyan author of Arthasastra, 90 

. Buddha's birth-place, 5, 160. 

, execution of a motion, 182. 

, placing of a motion before the Samgha, 182. 

, originator of the science of theft, 95. 

. n. of a dy., 56. 

. one of the Sixteen Great Countries, 48, 49, 
55, 74. 

. country, 65, 81, 84. 

. Benares, cap. of the Kasi Kingdom, 50. 

. Kasi Kingdom, 46, 50,51,55,56, 74; inde- 
pendent before the rise of Buddhism, in the 
time of Buddha formed part of Kosala, 50 ; 
immediately bordering on Kosala, 51 ; the 
family of Brahmadatta in, 56. 

. a tribe, 158. 

. story of k. Udayana contained in, 58, 64. 

, n. of a gi'ammarian, 6-7, 9, 10 ; date of, 6. 

. a Pre.Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 90. 

. author of a Smriti, 147-9, 151. 

. a Gana, 169. 

. a Pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra ; 
same as Bhlshma, 90 & n. 2, 111. 
kingdom and cap. of the Vatsas, 5, 52, 69, 
84. 

. 52. 

. author of an Arthasastra and cont. of 
Chandragupta Maurya, 8, 15, 61, 85, 89, 
91, 100 ; quotation from Bharadvaja, 104, 
113 ; his attempt to rescue the Artha- 
sastra which was being forgotten, 108- 



INDEX. 



205 



Kavi 

Kavya 

Kavya-Mimamsa 

Kerala • 

Kern, Prof. 

Khalimpur copperplate , 

Khandahala Birth 

Khaninetra 

Kharavela 

Kinjalka 

Kittel 

KoTjanada 
Korandavarna 
Koravya 
Kosala 



KosaladevI 



Krishna 
Krita age 
Kshatriya 

Kshatriya tribe 

Kshaudrakas 

Kshemadh ar man 

Kshemavit 

Kshomadussa 

Kshudraka 

Kukuras 

Kula 

Kulddhipatya 

Kulikas 

Kurus 



110; members of political Saragha desig- 
nated kings by, 148-150. 
. Usanas, author of an Arthasastra, 93, 96, 104, 

111. See under Usanas. 
. Usanas, 91, 96. 
, a work by Rajasekhara, 47. 
.. coiintry, 6, 7. 
.. 39. 
.. 118. 
. 51. 

. n. of a k. deposed by his people, 136. 
. Emperor of Kalinga, 39. 
.. ii Pre-Kautliyan author of Arthasastra, 90. 
.. his list of Dravidian words in the Sanskrit 

language, 26, 27. 
., n. of a palace of prince Bodhi, 63. 
.. s. of Kalasoka, 82 
.. s. of Kalasoka, 82. 
.. country, 3, 4, 17, 19, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 

62, 65-7, 79, 114 ; mentioned by Panini, 3 ; 

one of the Sixteen Great Countries, 49 ; 

dy. of 65-7 ; 
... q. of Bimbisara and d. of Mahakosala, 

74 & n. 3 ; died of grief at the news of 

Bimbisara's death, 76. 
... 9, 10. 
... 105. 
., meaning of, in the Buddh. literature, 121 ; 

the authority exercised by, 163. 
... 14, 15, 21, 147, 148. 

... n. of a tribe, 158. See also under Oxydrakai. 
... n. of a k., 68. 
... k., 68. 

, . a Sakya township, 161. 
.. s. of Prasenajit, 65. 
.. a tribal Samgha, 156, 157 & n. 1. 
.. a clan or group of families, 151, 160, 179. 
.. 162-3; meaning of, 163. 
.. heads of Kulas, 170 & n. 1, l7l & n. 1. 
... tribe and country 26, 48, 49, 52, 56, 156, 
164-5 ; one of the Sixteen Great countries. 



206 



INDEX. 



Kurukshetra 

Kusmara 

Kusumapura 

Kutumbin 

Lalitavistara 

Lavanaka 

Lichchhavi kumaras 

Lichchhavis 

Locke 

Machchha (Matsya) 



Madura 

Ma,dhiira 
Madhyadesa 



48 ; position of, 52 ; a tribal Saiigha, 156 ; 
political constitutions of, 164-5. 
country, 53. 
modern Kasia, 5, 156. 
another n. for Pataliputra 79. 
head of the Aryan household, 163. 
a Buddh. work, 153. 
n. of a village, 62. 
150. 
a tribal Sarngha, 51, 74, 77,78,79,114, 148, 

149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 167-8, 179, 180. 
119. 

n. of a tribe and one of the Sixteen Great 
Countries, 48 ; position of, 52-3. 
Madhariputra Sri-Virapurushadatta... an Ikshvaku king, 16 & n. 4. 
Madoura (or Madura) ... cap. of the Pandyas in the South, 11. 

a city, the 'Mathura' of the eastern Archipe- 
lago, 12. 
Mathura, cap. of the Surasenas, 11, 53. 
Middle Country, 11, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 
147 ; situation of, according to Manu, 42, 
according to the Vinaya-pitaka, 43; its 
western boundary, the river Sarasvati, 
46. 
n. of a province and cap., 173 & n. 3. 
173, n. 3, 174 ; a democracy, 174. 
a tribal Samgha, 156. 

one of the Sixteen Great Countries, modern 
Bihar ; 22, 39, 40, n. 1, 48, 49, 50, 56, 
57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 67, 69, 71, 72,73, 78, 79, 
81, 82, 83, 84, 114 ; cap. transferred to 
Pataliputra from Rajagriha shortly after 
the death of Buddha, 50 ; dys. of, 67-86. 
cap. of Magadha, denotes Vesali, 72. 
language, 39, 40, 41. 
a q. of Udayana, 59. 
3, 15, 18, 52, 53, 91, 97, 103, 104, 111, 112, 

113, 131, 132, 136. 
121. 

a Buddh. missionary, 43, 45. 
k., f. of Pasenadi, 76. 



Madhyamika 
Madhyamikas 
Madrakas 
Magadha 



Magadham puram 
Magadh! 
Magandiya 
Mahabharata 



Mahajana-sa^nmata 
Maha.Kachchayana 
Mahakosala 



INDEX. 



207 



Mahanaman 
Mahanandin 
MahajDadma 

Mahd-parinibbdna- 

sutta 
Maharashtra 
Maharshis 



Mahasammata 
Mahasamghika s 
Mahasena 

Mahasenapati 

MahasTlava 

Mahdsilava-Jdtdka 



Mahavamsa 

Mahdvastu 
Mahendra 
Mahendra 

Mahinda (Mahendra) 

Mahissati 

Maithilas 
Majjhimadesa 

Majjhima-Nikdya 
Makkali-gosala 

Malavas 
Mallas 



Mallika 



a Sakya, 66. 
k. of the Nanda dy. 68. 
n. of a Nanda k., 83-5. 
sena- Mahapadma. 



See also under Ugra- 



.. a Pali work, 78, 179. 

.. country, 15, 39, 40. 

. authors of Arthasastra, 112 & c. 1. 

. . a place, 43. 

.. story of, 121-22. 

. a Buddh. sect, 82. 

.. another n. of Pradyota, 60, n. 1, 61, 63 & n. 1, 

64, See under Pradyota. 
.. 167. 

.. k. of Benares, 57. 
.. 55. 
.. 73. 
. the Ceylonese Chronicle, 67-69, 71, 72, 79, 

80, 82, 83 ; more reliable than the Puranas 

with regard to the family of Bimbisara, 67. 
.. a N. Buddh. work, 122. 
.. n. of a mountain, 8. 
. author of an Arthasastra, 91 ; same as Bahu- 

danti, 95. 
.. e. of Asoka ; his missionary work in Ceylon, 

39, 40. 41. 
. modern Mandhata, Indore State ; one of the 

caps, of Avanti, 4, 5, 22, 45, 54. 
. 56. 

Madhyadesa. See under Madhyadesa. 
. a Pali work, 60, 63, 64, 65, 73, 148, 155. 
. a religious teacher, cont. of Buddha, 

142. 
.. a tribe, 158, 169. 

. n. of a tribe and one of the Sixteen Great 
Countries, 48, 49, 51, 55, 79, 114, 148-9 ; 

assisted the Lichchhavis in their war 

but were defeated and became subject to 

Ajatasatru, 79. 
. d. of the chief of the garland-makers in 

SrSvastl, married to Prasenajit, 66. 



208 



INDEX. 



Malloi (Malavas) 

MaltecorSe 

Manavi Arthavidya 

Manaivah 

Mafigudi 

Mangnra 

Man tradhikara 

Manu 



Manu 

Maski edict 

Mathura 

matachl 

Mathava 

Matsya-uyaya 

Matsya-puraiia 

Matura 

Maulika 

Manrya dy. 
Max Miiller 



Mazhnaju 



Metliora (Mathura) 

midiche 

Mithila 

Molagu 

Molini 

Mrichchhakatika 

Mrityu 

MudraraJcshasa 

Munda 

Mulaka 



. a tribe, 158. 

. a tribe, 160, n. 1. 

. 96-97. 

a School of Hindu Polity, 89. 
. n. of a village, 23. 
s. of Kalasoka, 82. 
. 99. 

. author of a Dharmasastra, 42, 44, 46, 53, 
91, 96, 97, 104, 106, 108 & n. 2, 111, 185; 
date of its present form, 42 ; original Manu 
probably prior even to the Dharmasiitras, 
108, n. 2. 
s. of Vivasvat, first elected k. of men, 

119-20. 
of Asoka, 22. 

town of the Siirasenas, 10, 11, 12, 16, 53. 
a Dravidian word traced in the Vedic litera- 
ture, 26-7. 
the 'Videgha,' k. of Videha, story of, 14. 
an internecine quarrel or rebellion, 116, 117, 

118, 119. 
56. 

the 'Mathura' of Ceylon, 12. 
n. of a country, same as Mulaka, 4, n. 3, See 

under Mulaka. 
. 6, n. 1, 40, 72. 
. 105. ' 

. author of an Arthasastra, 112. 
. n. of a village, 23. 
. Gk. ambassador to the court of Chandra- 

gupta, 6, n. 1, 7, 8,9, 11, 12, 160, n. 1. 
. town of the Saurasenas, 9. 
. 27. 

. modern Darbhanga District, Bihar, 50. 
, , n. of a village, 23. 
.. a n. of Benares, 51. 
.. a Sk. drama, 64, 95. 
.. god, 106. 

. a Sk. drama, 70, n. 1. 
. k., 68, 80. 

. country, associated with Asmaka, 4 & n. 3, 
5, 22, 53 & n. 5. 



INDEX. 



209 



Malananda 
Mutibas 

Naga 

Naga-Dasaka 

Naga dy. 

nahana-chuniia-mula 

Naigamas 

Nanda dy. 

Nandivardhana 

Nandivardhana 

Narada 

Narada 

Naradeva 

Narayana 

Narmada 

Nasik 

Negama 

Nigama 



mgama-gramas 

Nigama-samglia 

nikaya 

Nirayavali-sutra 

Nysa 

Nysians 

Orosius 

Oldenberg, Prof. 

Oiydrakai 

PadmavatT 

Padma-vyuha 
Palaka 



... ak. of S. India, 33, n. 1. 

... 3. 

... n. of a leatherworker, 30. 

... the last k. of the family of Bimbisara, 71, 80. 

.. 71,80,81. 

. . bath and perfume money, 74. 

... citizens, 175. 

.. 83. 

.. k., s. of Kalasoka, 82. 

. . k. of the Nanda dy., 68, 83. 

.. a Pre-Kautilyan author of a work on kingly 
duties, 90, n. 1, 95. 

. n. of a Buddh. monk, 80. 

.. 127, 130. 

.. god, 98. 

.. r., 4, 5, 22, 45, 60. 

.. gift of the inhabitants of, 176-77. 

... 'body of townsmen', not Biihler's 'mer- 
cantile guild,' 176, n. 1- 

.. a kind of political gana town-ship, l70, 
n. 1, 172; seal of, associated with the 
seal of Icumaramatya, l7l, n. 1 ; 
government of, 174-78 ; Naigama, a 
corporate body, the word derived from 
Nigama, 175; cannot mean a 'guild', 175, 
n. 1 ; power to issue money, l76. 

.. 177. 

.. 177-9. 

.. 141, n. 1. 

.. a Jaina work, 78. 

.. form of government at, 178. 

.. 159. 

. . a Gk. historian, 158. 
39, 40. 
a tribe, identified with the Kshaudrakas, 

158. 
sist«r of k. Darsaka and q. of Udayana, 59, 
62, 63, 69, 70, E. 1, 80. 

. 83. 

s. of Pradyota, ousted by Aryaka, s. of Gopala, 
64. 



210 



INDEX. 



Pali language 

Pallava dy. 
Panchala 



Panchamaka 

Panchavatl 

Pandion 

Pandoea 

Pandugati 

Pandu 

Pandaka 

Pandoonoi 

Pandya 



Pandya 

Pandyakavataka 

Panini 



Parasara 

Parasarah 
Parasurama 
parishads 
Parsas 

Pasanaka Chetiya 
Pasenadi (Prasenajit) 

Pashandis 
Pataligrama 



Pataliputra 
Patanjali 



. 22, 24, n. 1, 31 & n, 1, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 

39, 41. 
. 33, 34. 

. n. of a Kshatriya tribe and country, 14 ; one 
of the Sixteen Great Countries, 48 ; position 

of, 52-3 ; kings of, 56 ; cap. at Kampilya, 

157 ; double meaning of the word, 148 ; 

constitution of, 164-5. 
. k., s. of Kalasoka 82. 
. 18. 

.. See under Pandya. 
,, d. of 'the Indian Hercules,' 9. 
.. one of the Nine Nandas, 83. 
.. an Aryan tribe, 9, 11, 14. See under Pandya- 
,. one of the Nine Nandas 83. 
.. same as Pandya, 10. See under Pandya. 
,. an Aryan Kshatriya tribe, 6, 7, 9, 14; connect- 
ed with the North, 9 ; migration of, 

10-11 ; colonisation of Ceylon, 12-13 ; their 

kingdom, 23. 
.. d. of Krishna, 10. 
. . identiiication of, 8, n. 1, 
,. grammarian, 3, 5, 6, 7, 14, 141-2, 147 ; date of, 

3 ; his school of grammar, 5 ; reference to 

Samgha and Gana, 141-2. 
.. a Pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 89, 

104, 191 ; work metrical in form, 104. 
.. School of Polity, 89. 
.. a Kshatriya, 84, 
,. 180. 
.. a tribe, 144; identified with the Persis, 145 

& n. 1. 
. . a place, 5. 
.. k. of Kosala, a cent, of Buddha, 57, 60, 65, 66, 

74 & n. 3, 76, 77, 81, 148 
.. 175. 
.. a village on the road from Vesali to Rajagriha ; 

fortification of, 78. 
.. cap. of Magadha, 4, n. 4, 50, 78, 79, 80, 82. 
.. grammarian ; native place of, 4, n. 4, 6, 

n. 1. 



INDEX. 



211 



Patitthana (Pratish- 
thana) 



Paura 
Paurava dy. 
Pava 

Paveni-'potthaJca 
Periplus 
Pharaohs 
Pindola 
Pisuna 

Pisunaputra 

Pliny 

Potana (Potali) 

Prabhakaravarddhana .. 

Prachetasa Manu 

Pradyota 

Pradyota dy. 

Pradyota-Mahasena 

Prajapati 

Pralhada 

Prathania-kayastha 
Prathama- kulika 
Pratijnd-yatigandharaya 

na 
Pratipa 
Prayaga 

Pre-Maurya period 
Prithudaka 
Prithu Vainya 
Priyaka 
Proklais 
Ptolemy 
Pugas 

Puga-gamanikas 
Pulindas 
Pulumavi 
Puloma 



cap, of Mulaka, Paithan, Nizam's territory, 
4, 5, 15-16, 22, 53; cap. of Aila 
Pururavas, 15-16. 
Town people, citizen, 136-7. 

58. 

a place, 5. 

•Book of Precidents, 155. 

13, n. 

of Egypt, 128- 

6 3 n. 3. 

a pre-Kautilyan author of Arthasastra, 
same as Narada, 90 & n. 1, 95. 
. author of an Arthasastra, 90, 95. 
, 9, 11. 
. cap. of Assaka, 53. 

k. of Sthanvlsvara, 47. 

91. 

k. of Avanti, 58, 60, 64, 81. 

81, 84. 

59. 
. 128. 

a k. ; discourse with the sage Usanas, 107, 
n. 2. 

171, n. 

171. 

I a Sk. drama by Bhasa, 58. 

. k., 136. 

. Allahabad, 42, 44. 

. circa 650-325 B.C., 1. 

. modern Pehoa, 47. 

. 126, 127. 

. treasurer of k. Munda, 80. 

, G-k. n. of PushkaravatI, 54, n. 3. 

, 11, 13, n., 54, n. 3. 

. 175. 

. Elders of a Gana, 160. 

. n. of an aboriginal tribe, 3. 

. a. S. Indian royal name, 34, n. 1. 

. author of an Arthasastra, 112. 



212 



INDEX. 



Pundras 
Pupphavati 
Pur a 

Purana-kassapa 
Puranas 



Pushkaravati 

Pushpamitra 

Pushpapura 

Bajadha rma 

Baja-dharm-anusasana 

Rajagriha 



RajaJculas 
Raj an 
Raj any a 
Rajasdbdin 
Baja-sabd-opajiv in 
Bajasastra 



Raj yavardhana 
Rakshasas 
Rakshases 
Rama 

Ramayana 

Ramma 

Raslifcrap;Xla 

Ratnavall 

Rhys Davids, Prof. 

Rigveda 

Ronsseau 

Rumanvat 

Sabagra9 

Sabaras 

Sabarcae 

sahhas 

Saclicliaka 



.. 3, 21, 40, n. 1. 

.. a n. of Benares, 50. 

.. cap. town, 175. 

.. 142. 

.. 3, 9, 17, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64,65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 

73, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 106, 107, 131 ; 

chaotic condition of the Puranic accounts, 

58 ; value of, 67-8. 
.. cap. of Takshasila, 54, n. 3. 
.. founder of the Sunga dy., 72. 
... a city, 82. 
... 92, 96, 120. 
... 111. 
... modern Rajgir, Bihar, the earlier cap, of 

the Magadha empire, 50, 59, 60, 63, 64, 

73, 74, 78, 82. 
... 151. 

.. meaning of, in the Buddh. literature, 121. 
... 127. 
... 153. 
... 148, 156. 
... 92. 

.. a poet, 47 

.. s. of k. Prabhakaravardhana of Kanauj, 47. 
.. tribe, 20, 21, 145. 
.. tribe, 144. 
.. 17, 18, 20, 21; his south v(rard march, 

18-20; war with the Rakshasas, 21. 
.. 3, 17, 18, 19, 117, 136, 145. 
.. a n. of Benares, 51. 
.. one of the Nine Nandas, 83. 
... a Sk. drama, 62. 
..40, 44, 140, 161. 
... 52. 
,. 119. 

.. minister of k. Udayana, 63. 
.. n. of a tribe, 158 
.. an aboriginal tribe, 3, 21. 
.. n. of a tribe, 158. 
.. 180. 
.. his discussion with Buddha, 95, n. 2, 148-9. 



INDEX. 



213 



SadanTra 

S agar a 
Sahasranika 
Sakatavyuha 
Saketa 



Sakyas 

Salaha-gahapaha 

Salalavati 

Samagama 

Samana-brahmana 

Samavati 

Sambastai 

Samgha 

Samghamuhhyas 

Saragha tribes 

Samitis 

Samyama 

Samyutta-Nilcaya 

Sanjaya 

SankarScharya 

Sankararya 

Santiparvan 

Saranjita gods 

Saras vat 1 

Sarayu 

Sarvanjaha 

Sarvilaka 

Sastr-opajivin {Ayu- 

dhajJvin) 
Satanlka 

Satapatha-Brahmana 
Sathiyamangalam 
Satrunjaya 

Satru-shad-varga 
Saubhreyas 



.. n. of a r., boundary between Kosala and 

Videha, 14. 
... 136. 

... grandfather of k. Udayana, 58. 
... 77. 

... Oudh; cap. of Kosala in tlie period imme- 
diately preceding Buddha, 4, n, 4, 5, 16, 
n. 4, 51. 
... a tribe, 65-7, 160, 164; their territory 

subjected to Prasenajit, 65-7. 
... 183. 
... ar., 43. 

... a Sakya township, 160. 
... 143. 

. . . a q. of Udayana, 59. 
... n. of a tribe, 158. 
... See under Gana. 

... 152. 

... 159. 

... 180. 

... a k. of the Brahmadatta dy., 57. 

... 145 

... k., s. of Kalasoka, 82. 

... 169. 

... commentator of Kamaudaka, 97. 
. 91-94,96, 97, 102, 103, 106, 108-114, 118, 120, 
123-4, 149, 151, 152. 

... 145. 

... r., 14,42,46, 47. 

... r., 136, n. 1. 

... k., s. of Kalasoka, 82. 

... 95. 

... '(a coi'poration) subsisting en arms', 144, 148. 
... f . of k. Udayana, 58. 
... 14,52, 127. 
... 23. 

... k. of Sauvira ; discourse with the lage 
Bharadvaja, 106-7, 188, 190. 

... 131. 

... tribe, 158. 



214 



INDEX. 



SavatthI (Sravaati) 

Savitri 

Seleukos Nicator 
Senapat i 
Setakannika 



Seven Prakritis 

Shamasastry, R. 

Siddhartha 

Silavat 

Sindhu 

Sire 

Sir George Grierson 

Siri-Vaddha 

Sisanaga 

Siva 

Sivaskandavarman 

Sivis 

Sixteen Great Countries 

Skandaputras 
Social Contract 

Solasa Mahajanapada ,. 

Sonanandana Birth 

Sotthivati-nagara 

Sovereign One 

Sovereign Number 

Srenis 

St. Ambrosiaster 

St. Augustine 

Sthanvisvara 

Sthaviravali 

Sudassana 

Suhma 

Suhraniti 

Sumangalabilasini 

Sumsumaragiri 



. country, 24, 106. 

cap. of Kosala, 5, 19, 51, 66, 77 ; identification 
of, 51. 

god, 128. 

Gk. k., 7. 

72, 154, 155, 162. 
, n. of a town, 43. 
. 5. 
, 111, n. 1. 

88. 

n, of a goldsmith, 30. 

s. of Bimbisara, 75. 

country, 13 ; inhabitants of, 24. 

128. 

his opinion about the Aryan language, 24- 5. 

minister of Prasenajit, 66. 

founder of a Magadhan dy., 68, 81. 

god, abridged Danda-niti into a treatise called 
VaisalSksha, 92, 94. 

a Pallava k., 33, n 2. 

a Janapada tribe, 173-4. 

. . . enumeration of, 48 ; conterminous countries 
specified by pairs, 49. 

95. 

theory of, 119, 122, 124, 129 ; knovi^n to Kau- 
tilya, 119. 

48. 

50, 53. 

cap. of Chetarattha,, 52. 

146, 

146. 

mercantile guilds, 144. 

a Christian Father, 129. 

a Christian Father, 129. 

modern Thanesvar, 47. 

178. 

a n. of Benares, 50. 

country, 40, n. 1. 

a Sk. law-book, 130. 

a Pali work, 154. 

a town, 63, 



INDEX. 



215 



Sunahsepa 
Surasena 

Surashtra 

Surudhana 

Susunaga 

Supparaka 

Sutra class of com- 
position 

Siitradhara 

Suttanipata 

Suyatra 

Svapna- Vasavadatta 

Takshasila 

Talimata 

Tamil Brahmans 

Tamilmuni .„ 

Tamraparni 

Taprobani 

Telapatta-Jataha 

Thera-therl-gatha 

Theravada 

Thuna 

Trigarta 

Ubhaka 

Udaksena 

Udayabhadda (Udayi)... 

Udayabirth 
Udayana 



Udyogaparva 

Uggasena 

Ugrasen a- Mahapadma 



UJjeni 
Uparicharu 



, adopted s. of Visvamitra, 3, 21. 

. n. of a tribe and country, 48 ; position 

of, 53. 
, country, 23, 24, 48. 
a n. of Benares, 50 
. k., 71, 81-2. See under Sisunaga. 
, country, 23. 

. theory of the date of, 104-106. 
rehearser of law-maxim, 155. 
a Pali work, 4, 15, 19. 
, 61. 
a Sk. drama by Bhasa, 58, 61-62, 69, 70, n. 1. 
cap. of Gandhara, 46, 54 & n. 3, 74, 134. 
n. of a town occurring on 'negama' coins, 176. 
. 23. 
Agastya, 18. 
Ceylon — seennder Ceylon; also n. of a river, 8, 

12-13. 
Gk. n. of Ceylon, 7. 
134. 
75. 
82. 
, n. of a Brahman village, 43. 
144. 

k., s. of Kalasoka, 82. 
k., 57. 
successor of k. Ajatasatru, 69 ; murdered his 

f., 79 ; cap. at Kusumapnra, 80. 
50. 

k. of Vatsa, a cont. of Buddha, 57 ; account of, 
58-9, 69; marriage with PadmavatT, 59, 70, 
n. 1, 81. 
113, 136, 133. 
k., 56. 

a k., 83, uprooted ' all ' the Kshatriyas and 
made himself master of about the whole of 
India as it was then known to the Aryans 
84 ; Chakravartin or universal monarch, 85. 
cap. of Avanti, 45. 
k., 93. 



216 



INDEX. 



Usanas 
Usiraddhaja 
Utkala 

Uttara-Kosala 
Ufctara-Kuru 
Uttara- Madras 
Uttara-Panchak 
Uttarapatha 



vaddhaki 

Vahika 

Vahinara 

Vaidehi princess 

VaideliTputra 

Vaijayanti 

Vaisalaksha 

Vaisravana 

Vaivasvata Manu 

Vajira (Vajiri) 



Vajji 



Vamadeva 
Vamsa 

Vanaras 
Vanasahvaya 
Vanga 
Varahamiliira 

Vart-opajivin 
Vasabhakhatfciya 



Vasavadatta 
Vasishthipiitra Puln- 



, 97, 185. 
n. of a mountain, 43. 

country, not included in the Uttarapatha, 44. 
. 16, n. 4, 17, n. 
country, 52; Janapada Government in, 174. 
a Janapada, 174. 

country, cap. at Ahichchhatra, 52, 
44, 46, 47, 48 ; the term used with reference 
to the Madhyadesa, 44 ; sense of, 46 ; Bena- 
res excluded from, in a Jataka, 46 ; Taksha- 
sila included in, 46, n. 3 ; placed outside 
Thanesvar and Pehoa by Rajasekhara, 47. 
. carpenter, 63. 
, 144. 

, probably identical with Bodhi, s. of Udayana, 
63. 
q. of Bimbisara, 73, 74, 77. 
59. 

modern Banavasi, 33. 
92, 94; 
, god, 106. 

91. 
, d. of Prasenajit, married to Ajatasatru, 66, 
77. 
n. of a tribe and one of the Sixteen Great 
Countries, 48, 49, 51, 55, 73, 154; known 
also as Lichchhavis, 51. 
a sage, 133, n. 1. 
, same as Vatsas, cap. at KausambT, 48, 51, 
52. 
an aboriginal tribe, 20. 
4. 

country, 40, n. 1. 
astronomer, 4, n. 3, 10-11. 
. a craft guild 144, 148- 
d. of Mahanaman, a Sakya, from a slave 
woman, married to Pasenadi ; mother 
of k. Vidudabha, 66-67. 
q, of Udayana, 59, 62, 64. 

4, n. 3. 



INDEX. 



217 



Vasnmanas 

Vatavyadhi 

Vatsa 

Vatsyayana 

Veda 

Vedehiputto 

Vedisa 

Vesali (Vaisali) 



Vibhishana 
Vidarbha 
Videha 
Vidudabha 



Vijayadevavarman 

Vijita 

Vilivayakura 

Vimalakondanna 

Vinasana 

Vinayapifaka 

Vindhya 

Vinhukada Chntukala- 

nanda 
Vinischaya-Mahamatra. 

Virajas 
Virata 

Visakhayupa 
Visalaksha 

Vishnu 

Visbnugupta 

Visbvaksena 

Vissasena 

Visvamitra 

Vriddhika 



k. of Kosala ; discourse with Bribaspati, 106, 

189. 
a pre-Kautilyan autbor of Artbasastra, 90. 
dy. and kingdom 57, 81, 84, 114. 
aunbor of the Kamasutra, 90, 93, 94. 
110. 

74, n. 3. 
, 4. 
cap. of the Lichchhavis ; 5, 51, 72, 73, 74, 
77, 78, 149, 150, 155; identification of, 51 ; 
called Magadham puram, 72. 
a Rakshasa, 20. 

country; Aryan colonisation of, 2, 5, 22, 45. 
country, 44, 45, 51, 59, 78. 

s. of Pasenadi, k, of Kosala, a oont. of Buddba, 
57; perhaps tbe same as Ksbudraka, 65 ; 
born of Vasabbakbattiya, 66 ; when grown 
up, went to tbe Sakya country and because 
of bis low birth was subject to indig- 
nities, 66 ; massacre of tbe Sakyas, 67. 
k., 33. 

kingdom, 149, 155. 
. a S, Indian royal n., 34, n. 1. 
. s. of Bimbisara, 75- 

the place where tbe Sarasvati disappears, 42, 
. a Buddb. Canonical work, 41, 43. 
. mountain, 2, 3, 5, 18, 19, 22, 42, 45, 46. 

,. 32-3. 
. 154, 156. 
126, 127. 

k. of Matsya, 53. 
, k., 65. 

a pre-Kautilyan author of Artbasastra, 89, 91, 
94, 104, 191. 
. 125, 128. 

. same as Kautilya, 98. See under Kautilya. 
. k., 57. 
. k. of the Brahmadatta dy., 57. 

n. of a sage, 2, 21. 

n. of a leather- worker, 30. 



218 


INDEX 


Vrishni 


... a Saifigha ; numismatic evidence of the exi 




tence of, 157. 


Vyavaharika 


... 155, 156. 


YakshinI 


... story of, 134-35. 


Yama 


... god, 106. 


Yaudheyas 


... a tribe, 144, 158 ; constitution of, 165-67. 


Yaugandharayana 


... prime-minister of k. Udayana, 60-62. 


Yayati 


... k., 137, r. 1. 


TebhuyyasiJca 


... 183, 184. 


Yodhajlva 


... 145. 


Yogasena 


... k. of the Brahmadatta dy„ 57. 


Yuvanjaya Birth 


... 51. 



C. U. Press— Eeg, No, 672-29-5-19—1000, 



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